Dodge Demon Challenger lays claim to fastest production car

The Dodge Demon may be a production vehicle, but its numbers will be limited. But getting there and keeping it legal – and reliable – turned out to be more of a challenge than they might have first expected.

But Dodge has done everything in its power to make sure that doesn’t happen.

With a 6.2-liter Hemi V-8 that produces 840 horsepower and 770 pound-feet of torque, the Demon makes the company’s other satanic models, the Challenger and Charger SRT Hellcats, look tiresome by comparison.

Other motorsport technologies fitted to the Demon, which won’t be produced in right-hand drive and therefore won’t be available in Australia, include the new “Air-Grabber” – claimed to be largest cold air intake ever installed in a production auto.

The car’s unique squared hood includes the largest functional hood scoop (45.2 square inches) of any production auto.

It sprints to 60 miles per hour in 2.3 seconds, reaches 100 miles per hour in 5.1 seconds and can complete a quarter-mile run in 9.65 seconds. Hell, it pulled its front wheels off the ground on acceleration for 2.92 feet, the first for a production auto as certified by Guinness World Records. The Demonization includes a bigger supercharger, enhanced intercooler, increased air intake with a special cooling function, two fuel pumps (versus Hellcat’s one), bigger fuel injectors, higher boost pressure (14.5 psi), higher redline (6500 rpm), and higher fuel line pressure.

The net is a Hellcat that churns up 840horsepower and 770 lb-ft of torque. It comes from the factory on 315/40 Nitto drag radials wrapped around 18×11-inch wheels, but despite providing 40 percent more grip at launch than the Hellcat’s tires, they’re street-legal, as well. It’s also available with extra-narrow “front runner” drag racing tires that can be bolted at the drag strip in place of the regular front wheels.

To save weight, the Demon is stripped of passenger and rear seats, audio system, floor mats and insulation. (1,044 Nm), routed to the rear axle via a special 8-speed automatic transmission fitted with a Demon-exclusive TransBrake that locks the gearbox output shaft until launch.

But what a Tesla Model S P100D won’t do on its way to 100km/h is lift its front wheels clean off the ground.

Oh, and it has also registered the highest G-force (1.8 g) of any recorded at the launch of a new production auto. You can even record the data from your runs down the strip. It can take gas with an octane rating of up to 100.

An intensive weight reduction programme has been necessary to attain those headline figures, and Dodge has trimmed around 91kg of fat from the Challenger for the Demon. These two, when combined, make the Demon the most powerful muscle vehicle around.

Here are a few things to know about the Dodge Demon. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will produce a single model year consisting of 3,000 vehicles to be sold in the USA and 300 more that will go to Canada.