Dodge’s Challenger SRT Hellcat – Not The Demon, But A Ferocious Alternative

The Dodge Challenger SRT Demon hogs every headline in the Mopar world, but Dodge never stopped building a 707-horsepower muscle car that most buyers can actually walk into a dealership and drive home. Here is what the Hellcat brings to the table when it steps out of its more extreme sibling”s shadow, and why dismissing it as the consolation prize misses the point entirely.

Who among us will poo-poo at the 707 horses the Hellcat delivers, or paste a â€œMy other Dodge is a Demonâ€ bumper sticker on their Hellcat? None.

In a year when there are no less than 15 Challenger trims available, the SRT Hellcat is the (other) vehicle you must have â€“ if you have the $71,970 youâ€™ll fork over for the pleasure. Summer is coming, and there isnâ€™t any better time to enjoy a muscle car providing sheer, gas-guzzling auto-gasms.

⚑ Featured Gear

Start Car Conversations →

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Full article:Â https://goo.gl/JbnUfG

Every muscle car conversation in Dodge showrooms eventually gets hijacked by one name: Demon. It is loud, it is limited, and it hogs every headline the brand generates — which makes it easy to forget that Dodge quietly kept building one of the most powerful production muscle cars in history the entire time, without a three-year waiting list attached. Buyers who cannot land a Demon allocation, or who simply want something they can actually drive to work on Monday, have an option that gets dismissed far too quickly in the shadow of its more extreme sibling. The numbers on this consolation prize would have been the story of the year in any other decade.

707 Horsepower Never Needed an Apology

The Challenger SRT Hellcat”s supercharged 6.2-liter Hemi V8 produces 707 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque — figures that would headline any muscle car magazine cover on their own, Demon or no Demon. A 6-speed manual comes standard, with an 8-speed automatic available for buyers who want to spend more time worrying about traction than clutch feel, and Dodge backs the car with a 0-60 time in the low 3-second range and a quarter-mile that dips under 11 seconds — performance that would have been unthinkable from a factory muscle car a decade earlier.

Fifteen Ways to Spec One

With no fewer than fifteen Challenger trims available the same model year, the Hellcat sits near the top of a lineup deep enough to overwhelm a first-time buyer, and pricing for a well-equipped Hellcat coupe can climb well north of $70,000 once options are added — squarely into territory that puts it in direct competition with cars wearing far more exotic badges. That breadth of choice, from base V6 Challengers all the way up to a 707-horsepower flagship, is something few other muscle car nameplates of this era could match.

The Best Muscle Car You Can Actually Buy Today

Chasing a Demon allocation makes for a great story, but a Hellcat sitting on a dealer lot right now, with none of the waiting list drama and almost all of the shock value, is the more honest muscle car experience for most buyers. Every generation of this rivalry produces a car that gets unfairly overshadowed by something louder released a year later — for this era, that car is the Hellcat, and it deserves better than a supporting role in someone else”s headline.

Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter