2016 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Long-Term Verdict: One Year With a 707-HP Charger

By Mustaqim Jaed at December 26, 2020 Post a Comment

Hellcat verdict? Aside from greater, please? I spent 365 days with the most ridiculous sedan in the world: 707 horsepower divided by using 365 is nearly 2 horsepower in step with day. Is that the maximum ridiculous sentence I?Ve ever written?

But, let’s get serious: Did I learn anything after 26,012 miles seated in the deeply cushioned red barcaloungers that Dodge tries to pass off as bucket seats while averaging an almost respectable 14.9 mpg? I suppose you’d have to learn something—one entire elapsed year and all—but I have a hunch I learned the wrong lessons.

Normally with a protracted-time period verdict you?Re meant to check whether some thing inclusive of the $1,500 black-painted roof became a worthwhile non-obligatory expenditure. The trouble is I didn?T truly don't forget that this automobile even had a blacked-out roof until I checked the window sticker. Because not like ordinary automobiles, you don?T reflect onconsideration on things like that whilst you?Re residing with a Hellcat.

I did appreciate the $995 Brass Monkey wheels, however frequently due to the fact Licensed to Ill by the Beastie Boys become the 1/3 album I ever offered?The primary two being In three-D through Weird Al Yankovic and Raising Hell by Run DMC. I?M Gen X, yo. Even nonetheless, I?M no longer so certain I?D choose the $1,995 19-speaker Harman Kardon sound gadget. Oh, who am I kidding?Of course I could! Of note is the truth that even though I may have chewed through five sets of tires (one brief of my preliminary goal of six units in a yr), nothing on the auto broke. No matter how viciously we handled the Hellcat with Motor Trend?S model of extended put on and tear, most effective recurring upkeep?Like converting out eight quarts of synthetic oil every 6,000 miles?Changed into all of the large purple gal required.

One takeaway from living with a Charger Hellcat is if you’re able to control your right foot, the thing drives like a normal car. You might be thinking, “Hey man, anything’s a normal car if you don’t drive it like you stole it.” That’s not true of many performance machines. Take the Alfa Romeo 4C. It’s never a normal car, ever! The same is true for a Viper, a Nissan GT-R, or a Lamborghini Aventador. But the Hellcat version of the Charger can do a close approximation of a $29,090 SE model. It’s roomy, it’s surprisingly comfortable, the Uconnect infotainment system works pretty much OK, and the back seats are good for three adults, fantastic for two. But if any of the above figures into your decision to go out and purchase a Charger Hellcat—a $73,725 purchase that I highly recommend—you’re doing it wrong.

You purchase the 4-door Hellcat with the shrieking supercharger so you can see the look on the fellow?S face on the tire shop as he once again chisels molten rubber off your exhaust pipes. You get yourself a 707-hp Charger in order that when you?Re actually parked in visitors you may relieve tension with the aid of spinning the lower back wheels a chunk. Not a massive smoky burnout, but just enough to make everybody round you apprehensive. It allows both relieve the tension and break up the monotony. You buy yourself a Charger Hellcat because it?S as close to a concealed bring permit as there may be within the automobile global. Just like a .357 Magnum under your coat, you continually recognize the colossal electricity is there, mere inches away.

There?S a tension to living with this car. Perhaps that?S what three hundred and sixty five days of Hellcat stewardship maximum taught me. It?S a steady tussle among you behaving like a upright citizen and 4-wheeled, tail-out, tire-shredding anarchy. Do I actually have the energy to now not pointlessly deplete a tank of fuel these days? It?S a moral battle, a constant one.

There?S going to be a time?And it?S coming sooner than lots of you think?Which you received?T be capable of waltz down to your neighborhood community Dodge supplier and pressure away in a snarling, antisocial beast with a Satanized kitty cat head at the fender. Not simplest will vehicles be electric powered, but you?Ll additionally be too busy InstaSnapTweeting to even need to pressure them, assuming they?Ll nonetheless let us. No one will velocity, and vehicles maximum simply will now not burn out. I?M now not saying the upcoming future is higher or worse. I?M just saying it?S racing toward us. Quickly. The Hellcat, this Hellcat, any Hellcat, is a finger in the eye of that specific inevitability. Take a wager as to which finger.