Challenger SRT8 vs 340 Six Pack Challenger T/A – Old vs New – 1/4 Mile – Road Test TV

A factory 6.1 liter Challenger SRT8 ran six quarter-mile passes against a numbers-matching 1970 Challenger T/A powered by its original 340 Six Pack engine, then the drivers swapped cars for the final two runs. One viewer said the old T/A ran a 12-second pass despite missing a gear, while another swore they’d never seen the modern SRT8 run that slow. A commenter who owns both cars revealed his girlfriend was driving the new Challenger in her first-ever stick shift track session. So which car actually won?

Six runs down the same quarter mile, and by the end nobody could agree on whether the modern car or the old one actually won. This Challenger SRT8, running a factory 6.1 liter Hemi, lined up against a numbers-matching 1970 Challenger T/A powered by its original 340 cubic inch Six Pack engine, in a head-to-head series that got stranger the longer it went on. Halfway through, the drivers swapped cars entirely, turning what started as old-versus-new into a test of who was actually the better wheelman. One commenter watching the results claimed they’d never seen an SRT8 run that slow. So was it the car, the driver, or something else entirely?

Same Family, Different Decades

Dodge built both of these Challengers under the same nameplate, but four decades and radically different engineering philosophies separate them. The 1970 T/A relies on a naturally aspirated 340 cubic inch small block fed by three two-barrel carburetors, officially rated at 290 horsepower though widely known to run stronger than the factory number suggested. The SRT8 counters with a 6.1 liter, 425-horsepower Hemi V8, fuel injection, and decades of chassis and traction control refinement Dodge simply didn’t have access to in 1970. On paper, the newer car should win comfortably. The video exists specifically because on the actual quarter mile, comfortably isn’t quite how it played out.

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Missing a Gear and Still Running 12s

One of the most striking details from the comments involves the T/A driver missing a gear during one of the runs and still posting a run in the 12-second range. For a naturally aspirated small block from 1970 running on period-correct Six Pack carburetion, a 12-second quarter mile is a genuinely strong number even without a shifting mistake factored in. Commenters singled that run out specifically, framing it as proof of just how underrated the 340 Six Pack combination really was from the factory, since even a flawed pass from the old car still landed in performance territory that plenty of newer factory muscle cars struggle to match.

Never Seen an SRT8 Run That Slow

Not every comment favored the vintage car outright, but even the SRT8’s supporters had to admit something looked off. One viewer wrote bluntly that they’d never seen an SRT8 run that slow, a reaction that suggests either a driver still learning the modern car’s launch characteristics or a mechanical hiccup somewhere in the run. Modern SRT8s with the 6.1 Hemi typically run in the low-to-mid 13-second range bone stock, so an unusually slow pass would stand out immediately to anyone familiar with the platform’s usual numbers, which is likely exactly why that particular run generated so much comment section discussion.

A Stick Shift, a Race Track, and No Idea the Cameras Were Rolling

Perhaps the most personal comment on the video came from a viewer who said he owns both Challengers used in the video, out of Stuart, Florida, and that his 55-year-old girlfriend was behind the wheel of the new car for what was her first-ever track experience in a manual transmission car. According to him, she had no idea the run was being filmed for a video at the time. That detail reframes the whole matchup, this wasn’t necessarily two seasoned drag racers optimizing launches, it was at least partly a real-world test involving a driver working through an unfamiliar clutch and shifter under pressure, which goes a long way toward explaining why some runs looked rougher than the cars themselves were capable of.

Why the Driver Swap Mattered More Than the Cars

Races five and six flipped the entire premise of the video by putting each driver in the other car, a structure that turns a simple horsepower comparison into something closer to a controlled experiment. If the same driver runs slower in the newer, objectively faster car, that points toward driver skill and familiarity mattering as much as raw output, a conclusion plenty of grassroots drag racers already believe but rarely get to see demonstrated this cleanly on video. It’s a smarter format than a straight best-of-six shootout, and it’s likely a big part of why this particular video pulled in well over a million views compared to most of the channel’s other uploads.

340 Six Packs Love Revs, and the Comments Know It

More than one commenter zeroed in on the way the 340 Six Pack engine behaves at higher RPM, noting the small block genuinely comes alive as revs climb, a characteristic that separates it from bigger, torquier engines like the 440 or 426 Hemi that tend to make their power lower in the rev range. That high-revving nature is part of why Dodge chose the 340 specifically for the T/A’s original Trans-Am racing homologation, road racing rewards an engine that stays strong deep into the tachometer, and it’s the same trait that makes the 340 Six Pack feel so lively on a drag strip more than fifty years after it left the factory.

Worth Three Times as Much, and Nobody’s Trading

Asked directly which car they’d rather own, one commenter didn’t hesitate, the original 1970 Six Pack, noting it’s not just the nicer car in their opinion but also worth roughly three times what a comparable SRT8 commands on the used market. That price gap has only widened as classic T/A values climbed over the past decade while modern SRT8s, produced in far larger numbers, remain comparatively affordable performance cars. It’s a reminder that on the quarter mile, engineering age doesn’t necessarily track with collector value, sometimes the car giving up over a hundred horsepower on paper is still the one everyone in the comments actually wants parked in their garage.

A Million Views Later, the Debate Still Isn’t Settled

With well over a million views, this head-to-head has clearly struck a nerve among Mopar fans who like arguing about old versus new more than they like a clean, decisive verdict. The driver swap, the missed shift, the slower-than-expected SRT8 pass, and the real-world story of a first-time stick shift driver behind the wheel all combine to make the results messier, and more interesting, than a simple spec sheet comparison ever could. Six runs in, the only thing everyone in the comments seems to agree on is that neither Challenger embarrassed itself, and that’s usually the sign of a genuinely good matchup.

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