Mere days ago, John Hennessey took delivery of an extremely special muscle car. As implied by the headline, it's the world's most powerful series-production muscle car, a 1,025-horsepower land missile that runs 8.9 seconds in the quarter mile.
With Dodge canning the V8-powered Challenger and the third-gen HEMI engine family in the near future, it's likely that the Demon 170 will hold on to said title forever. After carefully breaking in the 6.2-liter supercharged V8, one of the first things that John did with his Plum Crazy-painted muscle car was to strap it on the dyno to see how much power it makes.
With corn brew rather than dinosaur juice in the fuel tank, 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 VIN 0025 lays down a staggering 924.70 at 6,310 revolutions per minute and 902.82 pound-feet (1,224 Nm) at 4,270 revolutions per minute. Dodge claims 1,025 horsepower at 6,500 revolutions per minute and 945 pound-feet (1,281 Nm) at 4,200 revolutions per minute.
924.70 is 90.2 percent of 1,025 horsepower, whereas 902.82 is 95.5 percent of 945 pound-feet. Seriously impressive numbers, for sure! While on the subject of impressive numbers, other Demon 170 owners easily clock 9 seconds at the strip, with some breaking into the 8s if equipped with the weight-saving mods.
Speaking of which, the car before your eyes is rocking the carbon-fiber wheels. As opposed to the standard forged aluminum wheels, the carbons add $11,495 to the final price. The satin black-painted hood? That costs a whopping $1,995, thank you!
Photo: Hennessey on YouTube
If you want satin black for the hood, roof, and rear decklid, that would be $3,495. Even the passenger seat is an extra, and the same can be said about the Alcantara and Laguna leather upholstery. One of the more expensive options is the sunroof at $9,995, which is crazy money indeed. Starting at $96,666 sans the destination fee and gas guzzler tax, the Demon 170 can easily cross the $130,000 mark. Be that as it may, there are pricier examples out there.
More specifically, the Jailbreak program allowed 40 lucky customers to choose between 20 special colors and 20 throwback colors for a cool $30,000 on top of the base price. In other words, a loaded Demon 170 Jailbreak would be $160,000 or thereabouts, provided that the dealer doesn’t mark up the car.
There is at least one instance of a dealer charging $250,000 over the manufacturer's suggested retail price, bringing the grand total – in theory – to a stratospheric $410,000. Insane money for a totally insane car, but on the other hand, bear in mind that $410,000 is nicely optioned Ferrari 296 territory.
Fabulous though it may be, nobody would even consider a 296 over the Demon 170. It's a matter of apples and oranges, and those in the market for a Demon 170 are more interested in quarter-mile times than how fast the car is around the Fiorano circuit.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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