This is it: the mad, bad, 840bhp Dodge Demon
Dodge’s unhinged, drag-racing ultra muscle car has landed. It will do actual wheelies.
Leave behind everything you have seen or heard about the fresh Dodge Challenger SRT Demon. It’s all just fluff compared with what we are exclusively about to tell you here. This car isn’t just a heated over Hellcat, it’s a totally fresh standalone model which will shatter any thoughts you have about what a muscle car can do.
Don’t believe us? Attempt these for size. The fresh two thousand eighteen Dodge Demon is/has all of the following:
- The world’s fastest production vehicle 0-60mph time. Posting a satanically quick time of just Two.Three seconds – with roll-out that time drowns to Two.1 secs – it is swifter than a Bugatti Chiron (Two.4secs) and the Tesla P100D with Ludicrous Plus (Two.Trio and a little bit). And that’s with the Demon being rear-wheel drive only compared with those two cars’ all-wheel drive platforms.
As mind-blowing as that little lot might be, it’s still a very long way from the end of the Demon story, of which there are many more chapters. But the big question is how Dodge managed to squeeze fairly so much spectacle out of what is essentially a Challenger. The reaction is: ninety seven fresh parts, the deletion of a several key components and some serious light-weighting.
Let’s commence with the heart of the matter: the engine. Despite the fact that they are both supercharged V8s, the only similarity inbetween the Hellcat’s and the Demon’s powerplants are the goes. Everything else on the Demon is fresh. And it needs to be as it’s carrying a lot more geyser.
While the Hellcat peaks at 707bhp and 650lbft at Four,000rpm, the Demon – using ninety one octane petrol – produces 808bhp and 717lbft. That’s a useful increase but still doesn’t explain those spectacle numbers. So this is a good time to tell you about the VIN-matched, owner-named Demon race kit, which will be available for each of the Three,000 or so Demons that go down the production line.
When you buy your car, you will be given a coupon. Don’t throw this away. The coupon entitles you to buy the Demon race kit for the princely sum of $1. This kit, which comes in its own bespoke crate, contains everything you need to turn your road Demon into a track Demon.
The car measures the petrol’s octane and, if it hits 100, resets all of the engine’s timing to make the most of it. In this brute mode, the Demon produces 840bhp and 770lbft
Among other things including a pair of smaller, lighter front wheels – as standard the car wears three hundred fifteen section Nitto NT05R haul radials all round (another world very first), effectively two sets of rears – plus a jack and an influence driver, the kit contains a controller which screws into the centre console. When fitted, this controller permits you to magically run your Demon on 100-octane race fuel, just by pressing a button.
The car measures the petrol’s octane and, if it hits 100, resets all of the engine’s timing to make the most of it. In this animal mode, the Demon produces 840bhp and 770lbft. And it keeps making that power almost irrespective of what the weather is doing thanks to an intake chiller system that actively deep-throats fever out of the engine and supercharger coolant, lowering the intake charge temp by 45degF.
The colder the air, the more dense it is, the more dense the air the more you can pack into the cylinders. More air equals a thicker bang, which equals more power. Plain, yet fiendishly complicated all at the same time. Fulfilling the ‘more air’ part of the equation are a pair – instead of the Hellcat’s single Air Catcher – of grille-mounted air intakes as per the Challenger T/A concept. Plus a vast bonnet-mounted air scoop – the largest on any production car in the world, naturally.
All of which would be less effective if the Demon hadn’t lost some of the Hellcat’s weight. Which it has – it tips the scales a utter 200lb (90.7kg) less than its little brother. But not through a myriad of near invisible lil’ cuts across the car. No, the Demon’s not that sort of vehicle.