Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Drags Nasty Chevy Vega, It's Close But Not Close Enough

Just last month, we briefly discussed how 'Grumpy' Jenkins' drag racer 'Toy X,' a 1974 Chevrolet Vega coupe, has recently revolutionized the Pro Stock class and won 13 events in its first year at the quarter-mile dragstrip. Now, we have another reason to be amazed at the old-school compact nameplate.

Sandwiched in between the Chevrolet Corvair and Monza, the little Vega came to life in the subcompact class for just seven years, but that was enough to make a dent with its many two-door versions (hatchback, notchback, wagon, and sedan delivery body styles) and two million worth of sold units.

However, just like the Corvair before it, the Vega was also enveloped in its fair share of controversy. As such, today, it's one of the cheapest old-school cars money can buy due to low to no interest from collectors. As always, that means you can snatch a few examples for pennies and start modifying them for racing glory!

That's precisely what happened with the orange Vega wagon we are about to see, most likely. The good folks over at the racing-focused ImportRace channel on YouTube have a nice set of brawls occurring at Island Dragway featuring an orange Charger Hellcat – and its first order of business was to duke it out with the little Vega before taking a jab at the classic Volkswagen GTI too.

We all know that Mopar Hellcats can be tricky to wield even within the safe confines of prepped quarter-mile surfaces, and this little Vega sure looked like it could hold its ground against a 12-second muscle sedan. But, as always, one needs to prepare for the unexpected, and this orange-with-black-stripes Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat wasn't even a widebody version.

On the other hand, it did shoot out like a rocket in its lane, and while the nasty Chevy Vega performed a very good 10.39s pass, that was nowhere near enough to beat this Mopar's 9.86s attempt. Keeping that in mind, we were much more confident it could handle almost anything, including a tame 12.42s Volkswagen Golf GTI. By the way, do note the Charger's consistency, as the driver managed a nearly identical 9.87s pass during the second skirmish!

It's too bad these beautiful machines (Chevy Camaro, Dodge Challenger, and Charger) are going the way of the dodo. Of them, only the next-gen two-door Charger will survive – albeit with powertrains fit for the EV lifestyle and the new 3.0-liter Hurricane inline-six turbo ethos! So, let's hope that a lot more people will keep them in their garages and modify them into nine-second monsters…