Challenger SRT Demon 170 is a 1,025hp Hellacious Send-Off

Sometimes, when a long-serving person with a great record retires from a company, the place will throw one helluva party. Dodge has been doing the same for its Charger and Challenger, the aggro cousins that are departing at the end of this calendar year.

The final iteration of this beast? The outrageous Challenger SRT Demon 170 will be one for the history books – and we won’t even make ya click the jump to find out why. Here’s the key stat: 1,025 horsepower and 945 lb-ft of torque.

We’ll take a moment to digest those numbers, knowing they will be on offer to anyone who can throw down the $96,666 asking price set by Dodge. And, before anyone squawks about additional dealer markup, the company says they’ll be prioritizing allocation for dealers who play by the rules and sell at MSRP. Now, there are a thousand ways around that but at least Dodge is making an effort.

(Editor's note and disclosure: Mr. Guy wrote this story based on his virtual attendance at a press briefing a few weeks ago. Dodge also invited us to attend the actual launch event in person. For scheduling reasons, it worked better for me to attend. I will be updating this story with any new info and pics, but Matthew gets the bulk of the credit for doing the bulk of the work. As for the disclosure: Dodge covered my flight to Las Vegas and fed and housed me so I could attend -- TH)

Anyway, to the car. According to factory hotshoes who’ve been behind the wheel, this thing will be capable of reaching 60 mph from a dead stop in claimed 1.66 seconds, delivering the highest g-force acceleration of any production car at a hair over 2.0 G. Gravol for the passenger, please. The quarter-mile? That’ll be dispatched in an NHRA-certified 8.91-seconds at 151.17 mph, says Dodge, though they freely admit those numbers are achievable in the right hands in the right conditions. Translation: Joe Schmoe is unlikely to replicate these times the first time they head to their local track. We’re told the car can still pop a wheelie and hop a Coke can.

All of the above assumes the car is being fed a steady diet of E85 ethanol blend, and the car is capable of draining its 18.5-gallon tank in less than six minutes at wide-open throttle, by the way. Here’s a key difference compared to the standard Demon: If the Demon 170 is filled with normal E10-grade 91 octane gasoline out of the pump from that Sunoco on the corner, its ECU will recognize the difference and adjust itself accordingly – no more time-consuming swapping of parts and such that showed up in a so-called Demon crate. Just fuel the thing and drive.

Of course, E10 knocks output down to 900 horsepower and 810 lb-ft of torque, a fair walk from those headline numbers but still outstripping just about anything on the road today. Since horsepower output is determined by the percentage of ethanol detected in the fuel, Dodge is only providing ‘red’ keys with the SRT Demon 170. We think they just ran out of grey ones. Brakes are Brembo-branded, with 14.2-inch stoppers up front and 13.8 inchers out back.

What did they do to a standard Demon to achieve these power numbers? Well, blow up a number of powertrains in testing, for starters. That’s why this car is being unveiled today and not at last year’s SEMA show in Vegas. Beyond that, there’s a modified 3.0-liter supercharger with a 105mm throttle body, high-flow fuel rail and injectors, and an upgrade of just about all primary power components in the engine save for the camshaft. The Power Chiller tech is functional, as are the Air Grabber hood and Air Catcher headlight eye. 

This, of course, necessitated beefing up the driveline with better housings, new cases and mountings, stronger-by-half rear diff cover, and a prop shaft that’s apparently 30 percent stouter than the oak tree that’s already on the Demon. The eight-speed automatic also got a stern talking to. Harnessing this power in the back are 315/50/17 Mickey Thompson ET Street R drag radials, with 245/55/18 Mickey Thompson ET Street tires up front tires. Again, this differs from the Demon in that those 0-60 and quarter-mile times were achieved with delivery rubber in place and not pizza cutters plucked from the Demon Box.

There’s a TransBrake for extra fun, fettled for the 170 compared to other examples of the technology, and alert readers will have spied the lack of Widebody fender flares on the front flanks of this car. Removing them saved 16 pounds, according to Dodge. Snazzy optional two-piece lightweight carbon fiber wheels are also part of an overall SlimFast program shedding 157 pounds compared to a Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye Widebody. Curb weight with the carbon fiber wheels is listed at 4,268 pounds. The EPA says it’ll do 21 mpg on the highway, if you care. 

All manner of customization is on tap, from various and sundry badges to gear through the in-house Direct Connect catalog. Yes, a drag-style parachute will apparently be amongst the options. An entire palette of 14 Dodge paint colours is available, including tremendous old school names like Plum Crazy. As befits the type of theme Dodge has been curating, the car’s logo utilizes the Demon head but with a ‘170’ neck tattoo plus a yellow eye as nod to E85. Oh, and if a customer wants their car’s VIN to match the Demon they already own, that’s in the realm of possibility.

Starting today, gearheads can find dealer allocations for this thing via the Dodge Horsepower Locator tool at DodgeGarage.com, with ordering beginning on March 27th. The latest information shows 3,000 units planned for America plus 300 for Canada, which is 10x the number we expected. Yee to the haw.

[Images: Dodge, © 2023 Tim Healey/TTAC]

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