In the world of muscle cars, there’s nothing quite like the Challenger SRT Demon. An out-and-out dragstrip warrior boasting a supercharged heart, the performance of this bad boy beggars belief. And rather expectedly, it’s a loud brute too.
In the first of the two videos featured at the end of this story, you can hear the widebody brawler burbling its 6.2-liter powerplant away on startup, then drive out on the M1 Concourse track in Pontiac. Behind the wheel, you’ll find Dodge head hocho Tim Kuniskis.
As a keen driver and an enthusiast of all things Mopar, Kuniskis likes to do things in pedal-to-the-metal fashion. Incidentally, the guy stomped on the loud pedal, unleashing the full might of the 840-horsepower motor. In the torque department, the $84,995 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon has plenty of that to brutalize its rear tires: 770 pound-feet.
Beyond the fancy electronics, weight-saving measures, and the 100-octane fuel capability, there’s no denying that the engine defines the hell-bent for leather Demon. But did you know that the supercharged V8 lump started life under a somewhat underwhelming codename?
Whereas the naturally aspirated 392 HEMI and the force-fed Hellcat are named after fighter aircraft, the motor in the Demon is known as “Benny.” As per a write-up from Allpar, the man responsible for this codename is SRT powertrain director Chris Cowland.Benny comes from the blue cat from the Hanna-Barbera animated television series Top Cat. There’s more to this perplexing handle than that, though.
You see, “part of the initial plan was to paint the engine block of the Demon blue.” But Dodge didn’t have any blue paint that would meet internal requirements for heat and corrosion, so red had to do.
To wrap things up nicely, the second video of this story features the Benny V8 on an engine test bank undergoing SAE power validation.
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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