A Chrysler 300 SRT8 versus a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat over the quarter mile. On paper it should not even be a contest, yet what happened at Las Vegas Speedway tells a different story. The Chrysler 300 SRT8 is a sedan you rarely see anymore. Out of production for more than a decade, with technical roots linked to Mercedes and the look of a composed business sedan that would not suggest anything particularly aggressive. At least until the hood opens and reveals the naturally aspirated 6.4-liter HEMI V8 delivering 470 horsepower and 470 lb-ft of torque.
Chrysler 300 SRT8 challenges 700-hp Hellcat at Las Vegas Speedway
In stock form it ran from 0 to 60 mph in just over four seconds and completed the quarter mile in around 12.5 seconds. Those figures may look less impressive today, but for a full-size sedan of that era they were far from ordinary. With a few targeted upgrades, its potential can increase significantly.
In the other lane stood the Challenger SRT Hellcat, a car from a completely different league. The supercharged 6.2-liter V8 in its less extreme versions produces more than 700 horsepower, and in the more aggressive variants it pushes well beyond 800. Then there is the Demon 170, the most powerful production muscle car ever built, capable of exceeding 1,000 horsepower on E85 fuel, running the quarter mile in under nine seconds and sprinting from 0 to 60 mph in just 1.66 seconds. A different world entirely.
The Hellcat at Las Vegas Speedway was still a “standard” version, if such a term can apply to a 700-plus-horsepower machine. The power gap remained huge, yet drag races depend on more than raw numbers. Launch, traction management, driver skill and the possibility that the 300 SRT8 was not exactly stock can all reshuffle the outcome in unpredictable ways.
We will not reveal how the duel ended, as shown in the video published by Wheels on YouTube, but one figure explains how close it was. At the quarter-mile finish line, less than one second separated winner and loser. A margin that proves how the old-school character of the 300 SRT8 can still bite hard, even when facing a muscle car with more than 700 horsepower worth of arguments.
