Throughout its different versions, increasingly powerful and spectacular, the Dodge Challenger has become the brand’s flagship model. The culmination was the Dodge SRT Demon, a model designed almost exclusively for drag racing. It is an 852 hp car that drops below 10 seconds in the quarter-mile… In its standard configuration!
But since you can’t always go down the street with rollers instead of rear wheels and tiny wheels in front, Dodge brought out the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye with an 808-hp V8.
The Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye is a more vitaminized version of the Hellcat, with some elements coming from even more extreme versions, like the base of the V8 block. And as is often the case with these models on the other side of the Atlantic, times in the quarter-mile (about 400 meters approximately) are something that customers take very seriously. Because more than one will take their car to the local drag court or participate in an amateur or club championship.
European sports top speed
But they also take a car’s top speed very seriously, especially when it exceeds 300 km / h. And it is that until not long ago, they were speeds that only a Corvette Z06 or ZR1 could reach.
For the US market, that a locally produced model and also a Dodge, a brand with a certain and assumed “blue-collar” connotation (worker, popular) reach the speed of a Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini or any other European luxury brand is quite an event. Especially when that Dodge in question costs less than $ 80,000 ($ 78,000 in Widebody version). It is something that had to be checked if he was capable or not.
So Johnny Bohmer Proving Grounds tested a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye. And the result is very flattering for Dodge. The manufacturer announces a 0 to 60 mph (96 km / h) in just 3.4 seconds and a top speed of 327 km / h. There is nothing.
And since it is a muscle car, it could not miss the time in the quarter-mile (0 to 402 m). Dodge assures that it covers it in 10.8 seconds reaching a speed of 211 km / h. The Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye would thus be 1.15 seconds slower than the Demon on the drag track.
On the Johnny Bohmer Proving Grounds track, the Redeye ‘Widebody’ (with 305mm-wide tires) reached a top speed of 314km/h, which is not bad at all. It thus approaches models with such a high pedigree as the Ferrari 488 GTB or the Audi R8.