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Dodge didn’t just one-up its own 707-horsepower Hellcat, it built a Challenger so quick that NHRA’s own rulebook technically has a problem with it. The Demon’s 840 horsepower, 9.65-second quarter mile, and Guinness-certified wheelstand all come from a Hemi V8 that shares its bones with the Hellcat but carries 25 real engineering changes underneath. This is what happens when a factory stops holding back.
Dodge built the SRT Demon to do one thing better than any production car before it: get down a quarter mile as fast as possible. The 840-horsepower supercharged HEMI ran a 9.65-second pass at 140 mph, a number NHRA formally certified rather than just accepted on the manufacturer’s word. A one-dollar crate engine unlock made the car’s full power street-legal in the first place. Watch the numbers that earned the Demon its record.
Dodge set out to build a Challenger that beat its own 707-horsepower Hellcat and back it up with more onboard technology than any SRT before it. The Demon’s New York Auto Show debut delivered both: an 840-horsepower Hemi and drag-strip-specific tech most manufacturers reserve for actual race cars. It’s proof that fast and sophisticated don’t have to be mutually exclusive in Detroit.
Somewhere between muscle car and import tuner culture sits this Dodge Demon, reportedly the first ever tuned to run on E85 and the first wearing what purists dismissively call rice lights. Its owner cheerfully admits the warranty is long gone. Watch to see whether this irreverent build counts as heresy or genius in the SRTMUSH world.
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.
Nothing else rolling off a factory floor lets you push a button and switch your fuel calibration from regular pump gas to genuine 100+ octane race fuel, but that’s exactly what the Demon’s dual-fuel system does. Behind that button sits a second PCM, dual fuel pumps, and larger injectors than even the Hellcat gets. It’s drag-strip engineering wearing a factory warranty.
The 1969 Dodge Dart Swinger sold itself with a simple promise: 6,000 RPM for under three grand. This particular example takes that budget muscle formula and adds a built 318 with a hotter cam, a Demon carburetor, and a beefed-up rear end to back it all up. Here’s a look at how a compact economy car turned into a genuine street performer.
Put a Hellcat, a Demon, a Shelby Super Snake, and a ZL1 against a vintage Charger and Challenger on the same quarter mile and you get more than a race — you get a referendum on fifty years of muscle car engineering. This lineup pits raw, mechanical torque against forced-induction modern horsepower in a down-and-back drag battle. The results say a lot about how far the genre has come, and how much of its original appeal never left.
Long before Dodge unveiled a single sheet metal panel, FCA’s engineers had already set themselves an almost absurd goal: build a car that could run a 9-second quarter mile and lift its front wheels doing it. The badge they resurrected to wear that achievement, Demon, hadn’t been used since 1971, on a compact nobody really remembers.
Ford let the GT500 name sit dormant for five years, and the spy photos that finally leaked in 2017 confirmed the wait was almost over – complete with roll cages, monster wheels, and testing sessions at Virginia International Raceway. Development mules hinted at a supercharged 5.2-liter V8 rated well past 700 horsepower, a number that seemed almost unbelievable for a street-legal Mustang at the time.
A Demon and a Hellcat, owned by the same person, hit the same dyno on the same day — no excuses, no inconsistent conditions, just two supercharged Hemis measured back to back. The results land closer together than Dodge’s factory numbers might suggest, with a bigger gap still to come once the Demon’s PCM gets unlocked. Which car actually earns its reputation once the numbers are real? See exactly where they landed.
Dodge’s Hellcat Challenger always had more horsepower than its standard rear tires could handle, and the fix borrows directly from the even more extreme Demon: wider fender flares, a full body kit, and tires built to actually put 700-plus horsepower down. Redline Reviews puts the 2018 SRT Hellcat Widebody through its paces to find out whether stolen Demon hardware actually solves the Hellcat’s biggest weakness. The tail-happy attitude is still there, it just takes more effort to find it now. Watch the full review.
Before it had a name, the 2018 Dodge Demon showed up to the 2017 Gator Nationals wearing camouflage and an NDA. Grid Banter caught the test mule’s first public quarter-mile pass, and even the Dodge rep on hand wouldn’t confirm what was under the hood. Watch to see the run that helped kick off an NHRA rule change before the car was even official.
The 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon didn’t just outrun its Hellcat sibling, it got banned from NHRA-sanctioned drag strips before customers ever got their hands on one. A reworked supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI V8 pushed output to 840 horsepower and 770 lb-ft of torque, enough for a 9.65-second quarter mile and a Guinness-certified wheelie record. Dodge built just 3,300 examples total, turning a street-legal coupe into one of the most extreme production cars Detroit has ever sold.
Dodge SRT Demon was not just another trim above the Hellcat — it was a factory-built drag car with a VIN, requiring its own fuel and a certification most production cars never need. Cornerstone Auto dealership walkaround catches the 2018 model at showroom level in Minneapolis, laying out where it sat next to the rest of the Challenger lineup. It is a straightforward look at one of the rarest performance cars Dodge ever built.