Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 or Dodge Challenger Hellcat?

Chevrolet’s Camaro ZL1 and Dodge’s Challenger Hellcat both pushed past 650 horsepower using completely different engineering paths, an Eaton-blown LT4 versus a larger IHI-blown Hemi, and ran almost identical quarter-mile times despite a 566-pound weight gap between them. Both nameplates ended production within days of each other in December 2023. Read on to find out which factory 700-horsepower icon actually deserved the crown.

Detroit muscle cars are legendary the world over, and nameplates like GTO, Barracuda, 442, and Marauder still bring to mind rumbling exhaust notes and big, smoky burnouts decades after most of them left showrooms for good. Keeping that tradition alive well into the 21st century fell to a much smaller handful of factory-built survivors, cars as emotional to drive as they are genuinely fast in a straight line. Two of the most famous, Chevrolet’s Camaro ZL1 and the Dodge Challenger Hellcat, spent years settling the same old Detroit argument with a lot more horsepower behind it. So which one actually deserved to wear the crown before both nameplates disappeared entirely?

Two 700-Horsepower Icons, One Argument That Wouldn’t Die

Both companies eventually built a factory answer that pushed past or right up against 700 horsepower, and the fight between the Camaro ZL1 and the Challenger Hellcat became the modern version of that same decades-old Detroit rivalry, same nameplates in spirit, just dramatically more boost sitting under the hood than anything from the original muscle car era ever produced.

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A Name Borrowed From a Legend

The ZL1 name wasn’t invented for this generation of Camaro; it was resurrected directly from a legendary 1969 COPO option code that put an all-aluminum 427 big-block into a tiny handful of Camaros, cars so rare and so expensive when new that dealers reportedly struggled to sell them at all. Reviving that name for a modern 650-horsepower Camaro was a deliberate nod to one of the rarest, most extreme muscle cars Chevrolet ever quietly built decades earlier.

A Fighter Plane’s Name on a Family Sedan Platform

The Hellcat name comes from an entirely different source: the Grumman F6F Hellcat, a World War II carrier-based fighter plane known for its raw power and combat effectiveness against Japanese aircraft. Dodge built an entire naming theme around that aviation heritage, later extending it with the even more extreme Demon and Redeye variants, turning the company’s SRT performance lineup into a running tribute to historic American fighter aircraft.

Two Very Different Ways to Hit 700 Horsepower

The ZL1 leans on a 6.2-liter LT4 small-block paired with a 1.7-liter Eaton supercharger, good for 650 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque at around 9.4 psi of boost. The Hellcat takes an entirely different route: a 6.2-liter Hemi fitted with a larger 2.4-liter IHI blower cranking out roughly 707 horsepower and 650 pound-feet at closer to 11 psi. Same displacement, similar general horsepower neighborhood, completely different engineering philosophy getting there.

Which One Actually Wins at the Strip

On paper the Hellcat should walk away with a straight-line win given its horsepower advantage, but the ZL1’s 10-speed automatic transmission and nearly 600-pound weight advantage, 3,883 pounds versus 4,449 pounds, close the gap fast in real-world testing conditions. Quarter-mile times end up almost identical, roughly 11.4 seconds for the ZL1 against 11.2 for the Hellcat, and the ZL1’s noticeably lighter chassis tends to take over completely once the road stops being straight.

The Track-Focused Variants That Pushed Even Further

Chevrolet answered with the ZL1 1LE package, adding adjustable suspension components and genuine aerodynamic aids borrowed from the Camaro’s road-racing program, while Dodge countered with the Hellcat Redeye, bumping output to 797 horsepower with a bigger 2.7-liter supercharger, more boost, and an upgraded fuel system. Both variants pushed the original rivalry even further past what either company’s engineers originally thought the platform could reasonably handle.

What These Cars Actually Cost When New

Pricing for both cars landed in a broadly similar range depending on model year and options, with the Camaro ZL1 typically starting in the low-to-mid sixty-thousand-dollar range and the Challenger Hellcat generally running somewhat higher once destination and gas guzzler fees were factored in, putting genuine 700-horsepower performance within reach of buyers who, a generation earlier, would have needed a dedicated race car budget to get anywhere close to that kind of quarter-mile time on a public street car.

The Nameplates That Never Made It This Far

Not every Detroit nameplate from the original muscle car era got a modern 700-horsepower revival like this. Plymouth’s Barracuda and Oldsmobile’s 442 disappeared decades ago with no factory successor, and Mercury’s 2003-04 Marauder revival was gone again after just two model years, leaving Chevrolet and Dodge as essentially the only two manufacturers still willing to build a genuine 700-plus-horsepower factory muscle car well into the 2020s, a commitment that made the ZL1-versus-Hellcat rivalry feel like the last real chapter of a much older Detroit story that started with the GTO and Barracuda more than half a century earlier.

Which One Sold Better While It Lasted

Sales figures for both cars stayed relatively close throughout their production runs, with the Challenger frequently outselling the Camaro in total volume across several individual model years despite the Camaro’s reputation as the more track-focused, better-handling of the two nameplates, a reminder that raw sales numbers and genuine enthusiast reputation don’t always move in the same direction within the modern muscle car market.

What Comes Next Now That Both Are Gone

Chevrolet has not announced any direct successor to the Camaro nameplate, leaving its future genuinely uncertain, while Dodge has committed fully to an electrified Charger Daytona as its next-generation muscle car, betting that instant electric torque and simulated engine sound can eventually replace what a supercharged V8 used to deliver. Whether either approach satisfies the same fans who spent years arguing over the ZL1 and Hellcat remains one of the biggest open questions facing Detroit performance cars today.

A Rivalry That Ended Almost as Quickly as It Started

Both nameplates are now gone from current showrooms. The last sixth-gen Camaro, fittingly a manual ZL1 1LE, rolled out of Lansing Grand River on December 14, 2023, and Dodge built its final Challenger, a Pitch Black Demon 170, in Brampton just eight days later as the brand pivoted toward an electrified Charger. That means this specific 700-horsepower rivalry, one of the last great chapters of the factory muscle car era, wrapped up inside a single December, which is exactly why this argument still hasn’t settled down in comment sections anywhere, even now that both cars have quietly gone out of production for good. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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