(dramatic music) (engine revving loudly) - After about two years
of doing car videos, I am standing in front
of one of the highest performance four door
cars in the entire world. And that's a strange statement when I say it's a Dodge Charger Hellcat. In that vein, the exterior. Now this body structure
has been recycled for, well about 11 years now. I will give it this, the
Charger has unique styling. It looks like Dodge product that's because this is old school Chrysler before the whole
FCA merger thing happened. When you look at it, if
you're a mopar person. If you're a Dodge Chrysler
person, you're gonna love this, but I can tell you one of
the most negative parts about it is, so many people
associate this with fleet cars, rental cars, cop cars. That it lacks just any
type of prestige anymore. Now I do think it has
a huge element of that sleeper factor. Actually there is no other car on the road that is like this, that just
can take anything out there and look so mundane at the same time. Now before you go off
on the mundane comment, I'm talking about the
entire car as a whole. The entire package, interior and exterior. Now there are certain elements
of it that are amazing like this front end. The air inlet, the hood venting,
the shape of the bumper, the headlights, the grill is
just top notch for a muscle car and this is beyond a muscle car when you really look at it that way. Now when you get pass the front
end and you get to the side. Well this is what I'm talking
about, it's fleet car. It looks like all the rest of them. The body lines just
look a little dated here and then to add injury to insult. This car has these optional
carbon fiber decals. It's just vinyl that
looks like carbon fiber and that's a $1000 option. Obviously, you don't have to get that and I definitely wouldn't. It would make it look a lot
more sleeper without it. Now statistically speaking, it appears as though people are losing interest in four door cars, and they're moving to
SUVs and Cute youths. Well, taking a look at this trunk here. I don't see a problem with this, there is a shitload of cargo capacity. Just look at it, first thing is, I can store my fourth
ex-wife ashes in here. I can fit my muscle milk, my protein bars, a small weight set and
of course my penis pump and Rogaine 12 pack. So for me, it works for everything. Now if you're a family,
chances are you're gonna fit a lot of things in here. I'm sure you can fit
strollers or cat food. Whatever you use but the point is, this is such a usable space. I would be surprised that
many people complain about it. Let's head in the shop and
take a look at the mechanicals. (techno music) - You'll have to come and look. Oh, you got a Hello Kitty shirt
to match the Hello Kitty car - Oh yeah, that's actually
why I wore it today although this is not a Hellcat. This thing should be called
a grisly bear though. I don't think a cat defines
anything about this. - No, maybe a lion farting
or something like that. - Not to say cats aren't
tough but this is a bear. A big hairy. - A grisly bear. - Yeah. - That would sound stupid though. What kind of car is that? I got a grisly bear. - I think it would be amazing. - Or a hell bear. - Yeah and it would have like a picture instead of the cat logo. It would be some hairy fat
dude on the side instead. - They should have called it the demon or something like that. Like the duster, whatever the hell that piece of shit is called - The demon duster. - Did you see the tightening
sequence on these here bolts? - No , I didn't. - Look it, number one, two, three, four or we can do it in a criss cross pattern to get the ultimate. - The ultimate rigidity. - Yeah. - Well this is a huge. - I mean look at that. - That's a huge part
of the chassis rigidity that's what ties everything together. The first thing is you have
double wishbone suspension. There is, if this isn't strut based like we see on every single car. - It's shocking. - Well mostly the reason why
we don't see this as much is it's been reserved for higher
end vehicles or luxury cars and the major reason
is, well its packaging. Double wishbone takes up more room. The next part is these brembo brakes, they are a true dual p, they're
are two piece rotor design. The hat is removable from the
disc which makes replacements easier and well, also could
be more of an headache as you look at it that way. Now what I really like is
there are slotted designed. These are not cross drilled. The next thing that you have
are these bilstein dampers, which are electronically
controlled and adjusted three ways. You have a street mode, a
sport mode and a track mode and the good thing about
this, it was set up properly. Last but not least, you have
hydraulic power steering. They did not use an electric
power steering rack, so what you get is a powered unit here that has a lot of road feel. A lot of steering feedback. Thankfully because of the double
wishbone and the hydraulics they're working together. It's just a good experience. The negative part about
this is, it's vastly dated. There's no effort in
weight reduction here. There's no attempts in airflow or creating down force, reducing lift. That's just totally off the table. - Wait till version number two
when FCA gets a hold of it. - So the next thing to talk
about is this automatic transmission and its actually
a huge part of this car. - It's pretty bad ass. - It is surprisingly bad ass. - Well I guess that's
not transmission related but they need relocate the paddles. - Yes. - Cause one might change the radio station when they going to sit. - Yeah, the paddles aside, you would want a manual
transmission in this car and if you get the Challenger. What you get is either the
automatic or the manual but the manual transmission
is lifted out of the viper but it's even modified from the viper. It's operated and upgraded to
handle the extra horsepower and torque for the Hellcat
which is a pretty cool thing, because the viper trans is pretty solid. The next thing is, if
you choose the automatic, well you're stuck with the
automatic in the Charger, and you would think all that's
not gonna be a good thing until you get behind the wheel. - I guess, I have to drive them both but that's pretty damn good. - And you said that this
transmission up shifts faster than - The Nissan GTR by 10 milliseconds. - And that's crazy because
this is a torque converted transmission, the GTR is, - That's a dual clutch. - That's a dual clutch,
so we talk about this with la-access right, people go, why don't they have a dual clutch and then you get it and
drive it, flat out mind you. When you drive it flat out, it's like, wow how the hell
did they get this done? So this eight speed, - And how long is it gonna last? - Right, exactly, that's another variable. This eight speed is taken
from their other SRT, their other hemi engines. I believe the 492, it is also operated. - Yeah but this is
totally different isn't it from the Hellcat? - No, it's modified for the Hellcat. - Right, yeah right. - You get upgraded clutch
packs, they're bigger. The other thing is, you
get larger gear sets but the case and most of the
internals are very similar, again just operated for
the higher horsepower. When we move to the back,
you have this exhaust system and what you have here Scott, I can't, - A sound. - Dual valves, dual electronic flaps which close to help prevent droning. This is a straight through
design so that is why it sounds absolutely amazing when you're on it but on the highway
there is a slight drone. The second thing is this drive shaft. It looks incredibly
small for what this is. - It looks like this is
the same one on the focus. - I know, it does and the
thing is, in the focus, you weren't sending all the
power to the back all the time. This you are, so I'm sure that if you're gonna add any
more power to this car which plenty of people
will for the drag strip, I can't imagine this
drive shaft holding up and I think many people are
gonna go to the after market here with carbon fiber
driver shaft, single piece. - The exhaust is bigger
than the drive shaft. - Yeah, it is strange but
again one of the things we'll talk about under the hood is the warranty aspect of this car. So on the back, we get
to these half shafts and you know notice this right away. - Yeah I got a bigger shaft than you. - Yeah, my shaft is only 33 milliliters. - I got 40 over here and mines, so wait yours is longer though? - No mine is longer and thinner which I guess in some circles
might be more beneficial. Now you read that this set
up, the unequal length set up and the different thickness is the reason why this car can put down
a 10 second quarter mile. - That's what they says
because it was NH certified, whatever and ended with talking about the unequal length shafts. - And this is where the drive
train engineering comes in. I would think you would
just want two thick and meedy ass half
shafts and that would be, but it has to be something to do with it. It has be, - I'm no engineer, I feel
like a dummy not knowing but I'll be curious to find out why. - Yeah and if you are a connoisseur - Oh maybe because all
the torque in the car, it automatically wants to
pull one way or the other. Whatever way the engine is rotating. - Yeah and the balance is up. It's gotta be something
with the differential but again if you're a drag racing person or a Hellcat connoisseur. I' d be curious to know
the engineering behind why these half shafts are different. Scott, let's talk about tires. I believe and I've read enough about it, driving this enough. I
think it's under tired. - Oh, I would think so. - I mean, it's only got
a 275 series width tires and on the back, that's the
limiting factor in stock form. Getting this to the absolute
fastest times possible. If you see all these online drag races, when they're using these
tires, of course it's not gonna pull it's full potential. If you put a real set of tires, not even drag radials on here, add over a 305 suction
width at least in the back. I think this would be a
three second, zero to 60 car and probably high 10 second car. - It wasn't a high 10
seconds with drag radials? - Right, yeah with drag
radials, it was high 10 seconds, so you'd be in the low
11s on real tires so it's, - That's fast. - It is crazy fast for the
price, it's tremendous. - Well just to think the
original one, the hemi cuda or whatever it was did like 14
something back in the day. - Yep, what do we got under here Scott? - Little four cylinders. - No, this is exactly your dream. You're tired of little turbo
four poppers and here you go. - Whatever I'll put that on later. - Tell me about it. - That's all you need to
know, super charged hemi. - This is the highest horsepower motor Chrysler has ever built or Dodge whatever, and this super Charger requires
80 horsepower to spin it. That's ridiculous, that's not
what's completely exciting about this, is it? - No, the purple coolant is. - Yeah, let's talk about
the cooling system. You have a separate
cooling system for this, they call it the cold coolant system because it's not tied into
the engine cooling system. SO they wanna keep the cooling temperature going into the super Charger because it doesn't have
a front mount air cooler. It is liquid cooled in the two banks. They wanna keep that cooling temperature at 70 degrees fahrenheit and
that is part of the magic of how the intake charged
cooler, all of that, down to a reasonable temperature because this is more than
an oven on top of here. - Man, supposedly can do what, 20 minutes on a three mile road course without having a heat issue? - Yeah, that's very impressive
especially for dream car. The next thing that they've
done is you have forged pistons, a forged crankshaft,
light weight components all throughout this and it has to be forged
because the levels of boost and the power that the
super Charger is facing. - Or even some crushed diamonds I've read. - Oh, they use crushed diamonds? - Somewhere in there I guess
or some washes or something. - There are extreme measures
taken to make sure that this motor is durable. Not only do they run it in
before it goes in each car, so they built this motor and then they send it
into their own engine dyno for 40 minutes and they do
running tests to make sure before it goes into the car
that this thing is stable. So basically when you
take delivery of this, it's pretty much running the
same way a race way motor would be running which is also a cool part because you can take it out and kind of just beat the shit out of it as long as you're changing
the running oil pretty soon. That's another unique
aspect of this motor. Yeah, this is pretty crazy. I will link some stuff below and in the written article, so you can find out more about this motor because this is not just a
generic drop in platform here. This is what makes the
Hellcat so amazing to drive and why it really is
special and not gonna last I don't see this being
around for very long. - Hopefully it is. Hopefully they put it in
every car that they have. - Now I've had the Charger
and Challenger both on track. Multiple tracks and let's
just take a look at the laps. This is what this car is all about, right? (engine revving loudly) - Watch out, there's a
chicken coming up here. (engine revving loudly) - Man, this car feels heavy. - That was way you're on, my bad. Start braking. (engine revving loudly) - Now after having the
Hellcat on track, specifically Road America, you just
can't wrap your head around how fast this is. I can't imagine too many
vehicles keeping up with it. That is until you come
barreling down a street at a 160 plus miles and hour
and realize you have to stop, and not only do you have to stop. You have to smoothly transition
in and out of the turns which, this is where
the Hellcat falls apart. It has no sense of nimbleness. So you have to get all
your braking down early. You have to control the weight
transfer and specifically, you have to be extremely
smooth out of every turn, small and large because
this car wants to power, over steer everywhere. So in the case of being a track vehicle. It's marginal at best
and if you're somebody that is more in tune with
nimble, lightweight, agile momentum based cars. This is gonna drive you
nuts but the cool part is, you can take it a track, it
will run 20 minute sessions without any major problems. You can take it to a drag strip and it's just one of the
coolest parts about it but we're gonna have to see exactly how it does as driving on the street. We'll cover that in a little bit. (dramatic drums) When you buy the SRT Hellcat, it should probably come with a blow torch because that exactly what
you're gonna be doing, Your licensed, if you any
impulse control problems or if you have a lead foot. This car can become extremely dangerous and forget about out running cops. You're gonna be out running
helicopters in this. That's one of the strangest
parts about driving it everyday. You can't help but just come
to a stop as much as possible and mash on the gas. (engine revving loudly) This is so ridiculous,
every time I get in here, regardless who gets in here. You just feel like you're
on an amusement park ride. Let's take this though
the turns and it's wet so this is gonna be very uneventful. You break traction on
any type of wet pavement with these tires. In throttle application, it's like touching a
woman for the first time. You have to be so careful with
how you get on the throttle. The trach and control modes
allow you to have a lot of fun but it totally keeps the car in shock unless you really get into the gas. (engine revving loudly) Man, one of the best parts
about the Charger Hellcat is you can drive this everyday
and be in total comfort. My preferred settings are
right here on this screen. 700 horsepower, trans and track, traction and suspension in street, and this has very, very good ride control. In fact, there is almost
no trade off as the daily driver here in terms
of suspension damping. Now if you put it on track
or sport, it does firm up. It gives you more ride control. It does give you more of that dampen ride which a lot of people that
like sports cars enjoy. But the thing is you
can leave it in street and it feels like most every other car. So much so that my father
had surgery on Chicago and it was over probably an
hour and half drive in traffic. I had the confidence to pick him up after he had his abdomen torn open. He got in this and I asked him
about halfway those the trip, how does it ride and he
said, "It rides amazing." So it's one of those cars that
at least you have the option with the adjustable
dampers to go just hardcore and then soft if you really need it. Now whether you're used to
Asian cars, European cars. I can tell you one thing, it doesn't matter what
type of enthusiasm you are. If you enjoy nimble handling
sports car, lightweight, heavyweight. You get behind the Hellcat, it
gonna change your perception about what horsepower can do
to the driving experience. You forget about a lot of the things that we complain about with,
well it's not light enough. It doesn't turn in right. It doesn't have immediate braking. When you get in this car and
you feel the acceleration of it and you get anybody else in here, whether you're a Prius
owner or not a car person. The smile that it puts on your face. Just how over the top the
acceleration is here is amazing. It will transform you, I promise. (engine revving loudly) The sacrifices, well it's hard to put down this power in the turns. The level of restraint required here to get you through the corners
without just killing yourself or looping this thing around
is, it takes some practice. But the good thing about it is, if you're looking to get
into a rear wheel drive car or if you've never been in a
rear wheel drive car before with this amount of horsepower. The stability control and
traction control systems are pretty damn good
without just neutering the entire experience. The transmission, now this,
you know I thought about it. I'm like I would almost
prefer a Challenger because you can have a manual transmission option in that car which
you can't in the Charger. But this auto trans is
unbelievable fast up shift and with the way that
this care accelerates. I can understand why so many people recommend having in an automatic
in just a bullet of a car. I've almost zero problems with
this car's up shift abilities Now down shifting, it's a little rough especially when you're at the lower RPMs. (car engine revving) But when you get into the higher RPMs, break traction already third gear. When you get in the higher RPMs, the down shift speed increases. It's a lot smoother but
if you're trying to drive around in town and
manually shifting this car at lower RPMs, it feels like
a torque converted automatic trying to go in manual
mode but everything else is amazing about it. These brakes are really good
at bringing this car down. Now there is body, you
feel the weight transfer from rear to the front. It doesn't matter what mode you're in, street, track or sport. There is some body control
issues and of course, it's a big platform, you
can't hide the weight. As much as they've tried to
but the whole point is brakes. They are legitimately amazing on here. I don't think you can have any
issues at all on this street and I didn't see any
issues on the track either. That says a lot. I'm gonna turn the traction to track here and we're gonna turn
first and see how this guy kinda gets off the line. (engine revving loudly) It's incredible, absolutely incredible. - Yeah, when you get inside the Hellcat, you got two options. You have a red key and
you have a black key. The black key only allows the car to operate in 500 horsepower mode. When you have the red key,
it's balls to the wall and the cool part is you can
see it on the screen here what key you have in the car. It's just a really great
implementation of that feature. The next thing and the most important part about this interior are these seats. Now you get into sports
car with some recarcos that the bolsters are like concrete. Sitting in them in long periods
of time can be an extremely frustrating and uncomfortable experience. I just got out of the Focus RS and those are one of those seats that are absolutely not fat friendly. If you're carrying more weight
and you're a bigger person, it can be absolutely embarrassing getting into cars like that. In the Hellcat, these
Charger seats are the best and most comfortable I've
ever been in for a sports car. The lower bolsters are comfortable, the fabric and the
material is extra grippy. The actual rib cage area
is not suffocating you. You could take a 700 mile trip in here and have almost no fatigue and that carries right into the backseat. It's actually the best part of this car is the seating surfaces and the comfort. It's really amazing. The next huge pro about
this interior are some of implo points like the steering wheel. This is very high quality. The way that the leather is wrapped, the leather quality, the
stitching, the flat bottom. It feels great in the
hands and the controls are pretty intuitive overall. The next part is this electronic shifter which we've seen people
complain about in the ZF trans. You have physical, it's still electronic but you actually have clicked gates. So it's a lot more intuitive to operate. Now the other huge pro
is the instrumentation and this is one of the
other best parts about it. Is your speedometer and your
tachometer are both analogue and the center screen is
super intuitive to get around. They have so many options in
here for gauge configuration. You can see every vital
function of this car through this center display. Speedometer, oil
temperature, oil pressure, in take charge temperature,
in take temperature. They haven't left anything out of here. The only negative part about it is, well I haven't found a
way to show a huge number to see what gear you're in. It's kind of buried in the right side which when your really
rolling through gears fast and this car moves, I'd like to see kind of a big gear display but that's a minor critique. The next huge pro is the Uconnect system and the way they have implemented all the performance screens
and they is physical control to go right to it here by hitting SRT. It brings up the screen
up here and you can toggle sport, track, traction control settings, suspension settings for
the adjustable dampers. You can switch between 700
and 500 horsepower mode and get directly to your performance pages where you can see zero
to 60 quarter mile times. You can see all your gauge information, your engine temperature, engine power. This is so well thought
out for sports car. In this price range, I think they're pretty
much leading the way. The next part is
infotainment which is apart of the Uconnect system. It's extremely easy to get around. It's one of the best
graphical user interfaces but it is heavily relying on touch screen and the navigation of course, it's just cumbersome
like most built in navs. You're almost, always gonna
have to use your phone but you know, you plug in
your phone, Apple or Android and you should be
extremely happy with this. The other physical controls
in here are pretty intuitive. They do feel pretty cheap overall, again it looks like something
straight out of a fleet car But they have given you
the physical controls here that you're gonna use the most. For HVAC, you don't have
to rely on the touch screen except for the seat
heaters and seat coolers, which you have to use the touch screen which makes no sense. You have your launch control
button directly down here. All you have to do is hold it. You don't have to go into the menus and toggle 20 different things. No, come to a stop, hold it. You're done. I really like that. You're probably thinking, this guy was paid off to give
the Hellcat a good review. Well here it is, the reality
if you took away the 700 horsepower, you took
away this transmission, some of the input points and the seats and you were just left with this interior. It's horrible. This is why so many people hated Chrysler, in terms of aesthetics, level
of design or lack thereof. This looks like they
went to fifth grade class and said, let's design our
first car interior today and we'll give you a gold star. This upper dash trim is horrendous looking and feeling. Now the fit and finish,
the actual gap in here. Everything fits together real well but it just looks so cheap. This is rental fleet car
here and then they tried to tart it up with this silverish, I don't know what it
is, fake carbon fiber. It just does not work for
me and if you're somebody that is infatuate with
having a quality interior or a prestige interior. This is gonna kill it for you unless you're addicted
to speed like I was. Now I'm gonna make an excuse here for it because you get so much from
the performance of this car for the price that you can not touch. Then I'm gonna make the
excuse for the interior. I couldn't live with it but
I would spend at least $5000 to have this whole thing reupholstered. Have the dash redone, the door panels. All the little chin-see shit in here, I would have redone. That's the only way I could live with it, I'll be just straight. (dramatic music) So what's the conclusion with the Hellcat? We talk about this. These affordable sports
car, they're comprised and they're comprised because
they're built to a price point and that is so normal
people can go buy these and take them home and enjoy them. You don't have to be a
one percenter to go here and have super car levels of speed. And it's not just speed,
there's other good things about it in terms of ride
quality, braking just, It's not just totally out
of control crazy either but the negative part is, well it's just an ancient platform. They've milked everything out of it. The interior is bottom of barrel so what does that leave you with? Well I can tell you what I think and I rarely make this kind of prediction. In fact, I've never been
in a car in the past two years or three years
that I've said this about. I think this is gonna be a collectors car. I think it's gonna be a classic, maybe in 10 years, 12, 15. I'm not sure but if
you're a car collector. This is one risk that I
would take is buying this and stuffing it in some garage somewhere because this level of horsepower
is not gonna be around. It's gonna be replaced. From emissions standards,
fuel economy standards, it is going to kill this
thing and we already know the new Charger platform is gonna be based on an Alpha chassis which
is not likely to fit this monstrosity. So all the bad and all
the good weighed together. This is one of the most
incredible cars I've been in, in a long time.
As of last year, Dodge has produced 35000 Hellcat challengers alone!
Source:
https://www.torquenews.com/106/2019-dodge-challenger-hellcat-production-numbers-arrive-online
This is just a crappy guess, but I'm willing to bet, that with 5 hellcats (Challenger, Charger, Durango, Grand Cherokee, RAM), there's a good chance Dodge will crack 6 figures of total Hellcat production by the end of the engine's production run. Maybe, if RAM sales are astonishingly strong, they can crack 150,000.
Just imagine, with production numbers like this, a few years down the line the hellcats would depreciate into nothing. God bless FCA!
SRT Grand Caravan please. I know we've been asking for it. Time to deliver.
I miss Turbowski.
He had some interesting insights, despite always coming off as he was too cool to take the whole Youtube thing seriously. The segments with him and Toddd were fun.
I would love to see his chemistry as part of a trio with Mr. Goose and Jack.
I live in Europe and I would make the extra effort to own one car, any car, with this engine, in a heartbeat.
Thing is...in my country, taking it to a restaurant would probably be more expensive in fuel costs than the meal itself...at 32€/100km = 61,30$/100miles. Ahahahah! But that is not really the problem. Taxation alone would put it over 150.000€.
Lmao. Mr Goose is the best on YouTube hands down. And it’s pretty awesome that Turbowski was right. I’m going to keep supporting mopar with my wallet as long as they keep this shit show going. Mr Goose was right it will be going away before we know it and when we all drive electric cars I’ll be able to say I had my part in the 2nd golden era of muscle.
Goose wasn't naive in saying that in late october 2016. It was not likely that the EPA would be eviscerated from within and tools like the CAFE penalty fee would be held back from inflation-updates. And with those things in place, the hellcat applications would be noticeably pricier.
Depending on what the new adminstration does, if they really try to catch up to the Paris Accord agreements, the hellcat-motors could become prohibitively expensive in a couple years.
And in the grand scheme of things, a 4-8 year lifespan for an engine isn't very long. Famous engines tend to be around for decades.