BMW’s 523-HP M2 CS Beat a 670-HP Electric Dodge and a 550-HP Turbo Six Charger by Half a Car Length

A 3,770-pound BMW M2 CS just out-dragged Dodge’s newest six-cylinder Charger Scat Pack and the 670-horsepower Charger Daytona EV in a head-to-head sprint. The margin at the finish line was less than half a car length, and it had almost nothing to do with horsepower. Here’s how Hagerty’s drag race actually played out — and why the lightest car in the lineup came out on top.

Dodge spent the last two years building two very different answers to one question: how do you replace a V8 muscle car? One answer is a twin-turbo inline-six. The other is a battery pack the size of a mattress. Hagerty put both of them on a drag strip against a car nobody expected to beat either one — BMW’s smallest, lightest M car — and the result wasn’t close to what the spec sheet promised. By the finish line, a tenth of a second and half a car length separated the winner from Dodge’s newest electric muscle car, and the reason has almost nothing to do with horsepower.

The race comes from Hagerty’s “Cammisa’s Ultimate Drag Race Replay” series, hosted by longtime automotive journalist Jason Cammisa, who lined up three cars that have almost nothing in common except a shared badge or a shared engine layout. In one lane sat the 2026 Dodge Charger Sixpack Scat Pack, built to replace the departed 6.4-liter V8 with a twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter “Hurricane” inline-six making 550 horsepower and 531 lb-ft of torque, sent to all four wheels through the same ZF 8-speed automatic transmission that BMW uses. In the second lane sat its stablemate, the Charger Daytona EV Scat Pack in Track Pack trim — a dual-motor, all-wheel-drive electric muscle car making 670 horsepower and 627 lb-ft with its “Power Shot” overboost engaged. In the third lane sat the lightweight of the group: the 2026 BMW M2 CS, a rear-wheel-drive coupe powered by the twin-turbo 3.0-liter S58 inline-six, making 523 horsepower — the least of the three by a wide margin.

On paper, the M2 CS looked like the one built to lose. It gives up 27 horsepower to the six-cylinder Charger and a full 147 horsepower to the electric Daytona, and it sends all of it through the rear wheels alone instead of putting power down through all four like both Dodges. What it has going for it is weight: at roughly 3,770 pounds, the BMW is about 1,000 pounds lighter than the Sixpack Scat Pack and nearly 2,000 pounds lighter than the battery-laden Daytona EV, whose pack alone helps push its curb weight north of 5,700 pounds.

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The S58 that powers the BMW isn’t a new engine so much as a proven one wearing a lighter jacket. It’s the same basic 3.0-liter twin-turbo inline-six architecture that powers the M3 and M4, tuned here for the smallest, most track-focused car BMW builds. That pedigree matters in a race like this: the M2 CS wasn’t rushed to market to answer a competitor’s move, it’s the latest iteration of an engine family BMW has spent close to a decade refining for exactly this kind of head-to-head.

How Dodge Replaced Its V8 With Two Different Answers

Both Chargers in this race exist because Dodge retired the 6.4-liter Hemi V8 from the Charger lineup entirely, betting buyers would accept either an electric powertrain or a smaller, forced-induction six-cylinder in its place. Tightening emissions rules and a shrinking pool of buyers willing to pay a fuel-economy penalty for eight cylinders pushed Dodge toward both bets at once rather than picking a single successor. The Hurricane inline-six that powers the Sixpack Scat Pack is a genuine engineering swing: twin 54-millimeter turbochargers spinning up to roughly 30 psi of boost let it outproduce the outgoing V8-powered Scat Pack by 65 horsepower and 56 lb-ft. Dodge is targeting a 3.9-second 0-60 time and a 12.2-second quarter mile for the gas-powered six — numbers that would have been supercar territory a decade ago, all from an engine that also has to feed a truck and a full-size SUV.

The Daytona EV took the opposite approach, swapping the engine out entirely for a 93.9-kWh battery pack and dual electric motors. In Scat Pack Track Pack form, a 10-second “Power Shot” overboost mode pushes output to 670 horsepower and 627 lb-ft, enough for a claimed 3.3-second sprint to 60 mph and a mid-11-second quarter mile. It’s the quickest Charger Dodge has ever built in a straight line — but that speed comes bundled with a battery pack heavy enough to erase most of the power advantage the instant a car has to change direction or shed speed instead of just building it.

The Numbers Behind the Race

When the lights dropped, the outcome flipped the spec sheet on its head. The BMW M2 CS crossed the line first at 11.6 seconds and 125 mph, beating the Charger Daytona EV by half a car length as it ran 11.7 seconds at 118 mph. The Sixpack Scat Pack, running closer to its own quoted 12.2-second pace, trailed both of them across the stripe — meaning the least powerful, lightest, rear-drive-only car in the field won a race against two heavier all-wheel-drive Dodges with more horsepower on paper. Commenters on the video were just as surprised by the finish as the numbers suggest they should have been, several calling out how much the M2’s weight advantage clawed back late in the run even as the Daytona threatened to run away with it early.

Why Being Lighter Beat Being Stronger

The result is a clean illustration of a rule that gets lost every time a new horsepower number grabs headlines: weight is power’s silent tax collector. The BMW’s 523 horsepower has less mass to move than the Sixpack’s 550 or the Daytona’s 670, and because both Dodges carry roughly 1,000 to 2,000 additional pounds — turbocharger plumbing and all-wheel-drive hardware on one, a battery pack the size of a mattress on the other — neither extra-horsepower advantage translated into a faster run. It’s the same physics that has made lightweight sports cars competitive with heavier muscle cars for decades, just replayed with two brand-new interpretations of what a “muscle car” even is anymore.

For Dodge, the result isn’t really an embarrassment so much as a preview of the tradeoffs buyers are now choosing between: a gas-powered six that keeps the visceral, refuel-in-five-minutes muscle-car experience alive at the cost of outright quickness, or an EV that outguns almost anything else on the used-Hellcat market in a straight line but hauls around a battery pack that undoes some of that advantage everywhere else. Either way, the V8 Charger isn’t coming back to settle the argument — these two cars, and rivals like the M2 CS, are the argument now.

Watch the full video above and let us know your thoughts in the comments.