Dodge swapped the supercharged Hellcat V8 for a twin-turbo six with standard all-wheel drive in the new Charger Sixpack, and Throttle House put it on the dragstrip against the actual Hellcat Redeye it is replacing, plus a Mustang Dark Horse for good measure. All-wheel-drive traction against 700-plus horsepower brute force against featherweight naturally aspirated tradition. Who actually wins when the tree drops?
For decades, saying Hellcat meant one thing: a supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI V8 screaming past 700 horsepower under the hood of a two-ton muscle car built for the drag strip and the school run alike. That era is ending. Dodge has replaced the V8 in the redesigned Charger with a twin-turbo inline-six they call the Sixpack, and enthusiasts have been arguing about whether it can possibly fill the old engine’s shoes since the first spec sheet leaked. Throttle House decided arguing wasn’t good enough – they borrowed a Hellcat Redeye Widebody, grabbed the new 2026 Charger Sixpack, and even talked a Ford dealer into lending a Mustang Dark Horse just to make things interesting. Three completely different approaches to going fast in a straight line, one dragstrip, and a genuine question nobody could answer from a press release: does the new Charger actually have what it takes.
About the Video
Throttle House framed this less as a typical drag race and more as a referendum on where Dodge is taking its most famous muscle car nameplate. The 2026 Charger Sixpack starts at ,995 in the US (,995 in Canada) and swaps the supercharged HEMI for a twin-turbo inline-six, paired with standard all-wheel drive – a first for a mainstream Charger performance trim. Lined up against it: a Hellcat Redeye Widebody borrowed from Favorit Motors, representing the supercharged V8 era Dodge is leaving behind, and a 2026 Ford Mustang Dark Horse (from ,080 US, ,650 CAD) supplied by Planet Ford, the lightest and most old-school of the three with its naturally aspirated V8 and rear-wheel-drive-only layout.
On paper, each car brings a different advantage to the line. The Sixpack Charger has all-wheel drive putting power down off the launch, something neither rear-drive competitor can match in the first tenth of a second. The Hellcat Redeye counters with raw horsepower that still outguns both of the newer cars by a wide margin. And the Mustang Dark Horse gives up power to both but carries meaningfully less weight, the one variable that matters just as much as horsepower once the tires hook up. Throttle House lines all three up and lets the dragstrip settle the argument that spec sheets can’t.
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The Charger’s Identity Crisis – and Why It Matters
The Hellcat name has meant one thing since 2015: a supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI V8 pushing 700-plus horsepower into cars most manufacturers would never dream of putting that kind of output into. The Redeye Widebody took that formula to its logical extreme, adding a wider track, bigger brakes, and enough power to make a four-door sedan run high-10-second quarter miles from the factory. For a full decade, it was the benchmark every domestic muscle car got measured against.
Then Dodge discontinued the V8 Charger entirely, rebuilt the car from the ground up on Stellantis’s STLA Large platform, and replaced the supercharged HEMI with the Hurricane twin-turbo inline-six – an engine architecture that would have been unthinkable in a Charger a decade ago. The top Sixpack trim adds standard all-wheel drive and an electronically simulated shift feel meant to mimic a traditional automatic, an attempt to soften the transition for buyers who grew up on V8 rumble. Whether it succeeds is exactly the question this video is built to answer, and it’s a bigger deal than one YouTube drag race – it’s a referendum on what muscle car means once the V8 is gone.
The Mustang Dark Horse, meanwhile, represents the opposite bet: Ford kept the naturally aspirated 5.0-liter V8 and rear-wheel drive, betting that enthusiasts still want the traditional formula even as rivals turbocharge and electrify. Putting all three on the same strip in the same afternoon turns an abstract industry debate into something you can actually watch happen.
What Makes This Shootout Worth Watching
What makes this comparison worth watching is not just who crosses the line first – it is that each car is making a fundamentally different bet about what enthusiasts actually want. All-wheel drive and forced induction versus supercharged brute force versus lightweight naturally aspirated tradition: three philosophies, one dragstrip, and a launch that exposes exactly how much traction is worth against raw horsepower once the tree drops.
Throttle House built its reputation on exactly this kind of format – real cars, real dealers, real stakes, no simulations. That is part of why the comparison carries weight with muscle car fans: these are not numbers on a spec sheet, they are a Hellcat Redeye Widebody, a Dark Horse, and a Sixpack Charger lined up at the exact same dragstrip, launching at the exact same green light.
Watch the full video above and let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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