Like most Jay Leno's Garage episodes, the American comedian starts this particular episode by showing footage of his teenage favorite, the 425 hp 1970 Dodge Challenger 426 HEMI, as well as the more modern third-generation Dodge Challenger SRT8 he also owns. But the all-new Challenger SRT Hellcat has completely won Jay Leno over with its sheer grunt.
Tim Kuniskis, the president and chief executive officer of the Dodge and SRT brands joins Leno in his stunning garage and starts talking about things we already know about the brutish Challenger SRT Hellcat: 6.2-liter supercharged V8, 707 all-American ponies and 650 lb-ft of tire shredding torque sent to the rear wheels via a Viper-derived six-speed manual or an eight-speed auto, ram air cold air intake in the driver's side headlight and all the other bits and bobs that make this model stand out from the norm and take the muscle car crown.
It's amazing when you think that an American car manufacturer went through with the effort and expenses of developing such a machine. It's up there in the top 10 most powerful cars in production today, so try to imagine just how much the Hellcat is pushing the competitive horsepower race.
An interesting bit of info dropped by Kuniskis is that the TorqueFlite eight-speed auto in its most hardcore setting can shift gears at a staggering 160 milliseconds. To put that kind of speediness into perspective, we'll tell you that the average human eye blink takes 300 - 400 milliseconds or so.
Jay Leno and Tim Kuniskis go on and on and on about the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat until the 13th minute mark of the video, so if you're like us and know what this hellish contraption can do on paper, just skip the first 13 minutes and enjoy Leno's short test-drive and impressions from behind the wheel of the most powerful muscle car ever made. If you're not a fan of Leno, just ignore all the jibber-jabber and enjoy the magnificent V8 burble with the supercharger whine on top of it.
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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