2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon Boasts One Seat, 215 Pounds Lighter Than Hellcat

“Wait, what?” That’s right; one of the secrets to the 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon’s diet is the fact the rear seats and the front passenger seat have been thrown into the waste container, among other things. Heck, even the brakes are smaller than those fitted to the Challenger SRT Hellcat.

Dodge brags that its engineers managed to lose 232 pounds compared to an SRT Hellcat, but the actual weight loss is 215 pounds because the big bad Challenger gains 17 pounds over the SRT Hellcat in other areas before the stripping actually begins. Bearing in mind the SRT Hellcat tips the scales at 4,448 pounds with a stick and 4,455 pounds with the eight-speed auto, the SRT Demon should tip the scales at anything between 4,233 and 4,240 lbs.

“That’s still pretty heavy, though.” Well, what did you expect? The Chrysler LC platform on which the Challenger is built on was developed from the older LH platform and it uses various Mercedes-Benz components for inspiration, ranging from the W220 S-Class’ control arm front suspension to the W211 E-Class’ five-link rear suspension. The underpinnings, I’m afraid, are the reason the Challenger is rather porky compared to the Camaro and the Mustang.

While on the subject of weight, it should be highlighted that the Challenger SRT Demon has little chances of being the all-wheel-drive machine Dodge wanted us to believe it is when the automaker revealed it runs a squared drag radial setup. You see, the Challenger GT weighs 4,108 pounds, whereas the rear-wheel-drive Challenger SXT Plus has a curb weight of 3,885 pounds.

In other words, AWD adds approximately 223 pounds to the Challenger, which is simply not doable in the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon's case. When you add all the clues together, it becomes clear that it'd be stupid to add all-wheel-drive to a car that doesn’t even have trunk trim, a go-faster machine that's been born to race one quarter of a mile at a time. RWD it is, then.