Dodge is winding down development of ICE performance cars with a V-8 Challenger sporting over a thousand horsepower.
Way back in the 80s, the general consensus about muscle cars was that the Golden Age was over. Small foreign six-cylinder engines, front-wheel drive and crippling exhaust emission controls ended the days of the Chevelle SS, the GTO, the big black Mustang—and the king of them all, the Hemi Superbird—were over. We were wrong.
Inconceivable advancements in engine technology mean that today, internal combustion engines produce incredibly specific output, with full emissions regulatory compliance. But one thing that advanced ICE technology cannot solve is CO2. Gasoline engines are going away, and with them that uniquely American phenomenon, the muscle car. Dodge has decided to end the muscle car era with one last fling: the Challenger SRT Demon 170. Like the last truly outrageous muscle cars, Chrysler’s 1970 Plymouth Superbird and Dodge Daytona, the Demon 170 is over the top. Jim Anderton comments.
And, access all episodes of End of the Line on Engineering TV along with all of our other series.
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Episode Transcript:
Today, if you’re a young gearhead with a love of performance and a modest budget to scratch that itch, you’re probably into variable valve timing, turbocharging, aftermarket ECUs and all-wheel-drive.
When I was doing it back in the ‘80s, it was much simpler: just buy a muscle car. What exactly is a muscle car?
This was a uniquely American phenomenon: a fast, powerful car that was not a sports car. Muscle cars were variants of typically pedestrian, mass-market cars such as the Chevrolet Chevelle, the Ford Fairlane or the Dodge Dart. Grocery-getter’s, or mom-and-pop cars.
But in 1964, when John DeLorean and Jim Wangers at Pontiac shoehorned the big Pontiac 389 cubic inch V8 engine into the compact Tempest, they created the GTO. And soon, big engines in small, cheap cars were all the rage.
The cars became legendary: the Hemi Cuda, the Judge GTO, the Buick GS, the Boss Mustang. Even AMCs Javelin AMX. These were powerful, big V8 cars with straight-line speed that could rival a Ferrari, at a fraction of the cost.
When I was hot rodding, you could buy these cars cheaply because they were 20 years old, or you could simply build one by dropping a big block donor engine into a grocery-getter. Pull a 454 out of a Chevrolet Brookwood station wagon, and replace the 250 cubic inch straight six in an old Nova, then head for the dragstrip.
But the dirty secret behind those behemoths was that the horsepower figures produced by those vehicles were not impressive by modern standards, especially relative to engine displacement. One horsepower per cubic inch was an ambitious target for most hot-rodders, and in an age before public dynamometers, we just bolted on performance parts until the engine blew, then did it all over again.
But consider this: to get 350 horsepower out of a stock small-block Chevrolet might require headers, a three-quarter cam, performance lifters and rocker arms, a dual plane intake manifold and a Holley carburetor on top. To go much above that meant cylinder heads, porting, high compression forged pistons and if not aftermarket connecting rods, then perhaps shot peened and beam polished stock units. You might see 400 horsepower, and not for long.
Today, Dodge is producing a limited run of what they are calling the last muscle car, the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170. Instead of going into the technical details of its remarkable Hemi engine, I’ll just get to the important metrics: 6.2 liters and supercharging to produce 1,025 horsepower and 945 foot-pounds of torque.
Let me say that again: 1,025 horsepower and 945 foot-pounds of torque. With full emissions compliance. In a car that can be driven on the street, every day.
For those of you without a strong sense of what horsepower means, I drove to work today in a Honda with about 140 horsepower. In 1988, I bought my first new car, what was then called a “Boss Mustang”: a stripped LX with a 5 L fuel injected V8 and 225 horsepower. A typical big block Chrysler muscle car from the glory days of the late 60s might have a six-barrel 440 V8 producing 390 horsepower. Although, 1960s horsepower ratings were SAE gross, not true output with a fully dressed engine experiencing full parasitic drag, so net horsepower was considerably lower.
For the only 135 buyers of the very rare Hemi Superbird in 1970, most of which were intended for NASCAR competition, the legendary 426 Hemi produced 425 horsepower. Emissions? Forget about it. The exhaust of these cars would make your eyes water.
So, in 2023, Dodge will sell you a Challenger just like they would in 1970, with a big V8. Except now, it’s over a thousand horsepower. It boggles the mind.
Since these are the last of their kind, owning one of these dinosaurs will get a little spendy. Dodge lists a base price of $96,666, but with typical options they will roll out the door at about $120,000. Of course, the collector community may bid the price significantly higher than that. Which is antithetical to the original premise of the muscle car: the high-performance, affordable basic platform.
My ‘88 Boss Mustang, which I still have, carried a base price of $11,995. I splurged for an AM/FM radio and went out the door, all taxes and fees in, for exactly $14,006. And they sold like the proverbial hot cakes.
The SRT Demon 170 will be for a select few, probably affluent old guys who remember the good old days. For you young guys, it’s back to your laptops, boost control and fuel mapping. But the fact that this generation can produce the power levels seen in my 5 L Mustang, out of a small four-cylinder—and can do it without launching the pistons into the stratosphere—leaves me in awe.
The fact is, today’s hot rodders are simply smarter than we were, even the ones that don’t have $100,000 to spend on a fast car.
