The 2021 Dodge Charger Hellcat Redeye.Photography by JEREMY SINEK/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
It’s easy to be awestruck by one of the industry’s largest surviving V8 engines topped by autodom’s biggest supercharger. But my nomination for the unsung hero of the SRT team is whoever designed the throttle linkage that makes it possible to drive smoothly in traffic with almost 800 horsepower under your right foot.
Likewise, it’s easy to take for granted the gargantuan tires that help keep an 800-horsepower rear-wheel drive car pointing in the intended direction of travel. But I’m just as thankful to whoever gave those tires a protective side wall bead that makes the tires wider than the wheels, preventing kerb rash on rims that extend about 60 mm further beyond the body-sides of regular Chargers.
Those are the details that turn Dodge’s demented pipe-dream into a daily-driveable reality.
The 'base' Hellcat is rated at 717 horsepower, and for $18,000 more, the 2BZ package gets you this Redeye version making 797.
Already back in 2014 we wondered what SRT had been smoking when they introduced the original Charger Hellcat (and its Challenger sibling) with a supercharged 6.2-litre V8 churning out 707 horsepower – utterly unprecedented in a “family” sedan.
Now the “base” Hellcat is rated at 717 horsepower, and for $18,000 more, the 2BZ package gets you this Redeye version making 797.
A pause now to deal with the elephant in the room. Yes, the Redeye is a dinosaur, an environmental atrocity on wheels, an unrepentant middle finger rammed up the noses of climate-crisis crusaders. I’m not telling anyone to buy one. Before the Redeye, I spent a week testing a Chevrolet Bolt EV. But the Redeye review was my next assignment, so here it is.
Also, some perspective: on average each year, ordinary Canadians and Americans buy about 325 full-size pickups for every one supercharged Charger or Challenger. And I’m guessing most pickups clock up more kilometres each year, often while towing big boats and RVs.
And truth be told, Hellcats will rarely be driven anywhere close to full throttle. It’s impossible to talk acceleration without also referencing traction. When the first Hellcat was launched, Dodge called it the world’s fastest sedan (328 km/h) and the quickest (0-60 mph – 96 km/h – in 3.6 seconds). Since then, adding wide-body fenders has aero-dragged the regular Hellcat’s top-speed claim down to 315 km/h. The Redeye raises it back up to 327, but the 0-96 time has barely budged, and the “quickest” claim has been retired. Several (heavier) hyper-sedans have eclipsed the Hellcats’ 0-60 times with “only” 600-and-change horsepower.
While many will loathe everything it represents, the Redeye marks the end of an era.
The great equalizer being, of course, all-wheel drive. Those fast-launching sedans all have it. The Redeye doesn’t.
To be sure, the Redeye has traction control, and you can activate Launch Control for optimized departures, but keeping wheelspin manageable isn’t the same as adding traction that isn’t there. All the more so since the combination of large engine displacement and a supercharger (vs. a turbocharger) adds up to much more torque at low rpm than other engines that may equal its peak power.
So the Redeye won’t deliver that literally gut-wrenching, step-function explosion off the line of all-wheel drive rivals using launch control at a test track. What it does deliver is colossal omnipotence in real-world driving. Consider Car and Driver’s numbers for the Redeye versus the Porsche Panamera Turbo S. Using a drag-strip launch, the Porsche’s 2.6-second 0-60-mph handsomely beats the Redeye’s 3.5 seconds. But in the 5-60 mph rolling-start test – a measure of usable acceleration on the street – the Panamera and the Redeye are a dead heat at 3.7 seconds.
Of course, the Porsche’s MSRP is almost double that of the Hellcat Redeye.
Meanwhile, Porsche’s sprintiest four-door isn’t a Panamera, it’s the all-electric Taycan Turbo S. Which brings us to the other glory of the Redeye’s performance – the soundtrack. No electric car can possibly replicate the Redeye’s symphony of different sounds that alternately dominate or harmonize depending on the angle of your right ankle: traditional mellow V8 exhaust burble sometimes overlaid by a deeper hollow boom drowned out in turn by a shrill whine from the supercharger and/or the scraping sound of rear tires scrabbling for traction.
The Redeye is never really quiet, no matter how gently you drive. Yet when the hammer is fully down, it doesn’t get as loud as you expect. As the revs head for the red it all blends into a deeply satisfying whooshing sound – more turbine than piston-engine.
Settle into cruise mode on the highway and the engine dials back to just 1,600 rpm at 120 km/h, a faint mellow burble from the tailpipes audible over surprisingly muted wind-and-tire roar. There’s no doubt that if our brief test had included more highway, we’d have seen much better fuel consumption than the overall 17.1 L/100 km (shudder) posted on the trip computer.
The Redeye is never really quiet, no matter how gently you drive. Yet when the hammer is fully down, it doesn’t get as loud as you expect.
It would take far more space than we have here to fully describe a car with Street, Sport and Track drive modes that each vary up to six parameters (power, transmission, paddle shifters, traction, suspension, steering), plus a programmable Custom mode to mix-and-match settings from different modes. Suffice to say, in Street mode the Redeye can be a pussycat, with a mostly livable ride (only deep craters break through its defences), effortless steering and seamless shifting. Progress through Sport and Track and everything becomes progressively heavier, harsher, more immediate and less forgiving.
But despite leechlike grip, rewarding steering feel and right-pedal drift-on-demand, you always feel the Redeye’s size and weight. This isn’t a car that would dance around a race track; the Redeye would bludgeon the track into submission. Having driven original Hellcats on the track I know it’s not scary, but let’s just say the SRT hasn’t joined the brands vying to set production-car lap records on the Nurburgring.
How very American. The Redeye certainly isn’t inept on a track, but like the original muscle cars of the 60s, it’s mostly about monumental straight-line speed. Many will loathe everything it represents. Others will worship it. Either way, it marks the end of an era.
Tech specs
2021 Dodge Charger Hellcat Redeye
Price, base/as tested: $105,515/$113,990
Engine: 6.2-litre supercharged V8
Transmission/drive: Eight-speed automatic/RWD
Fuel consumption, L/100 km: 19 city/11.5 hwy
Alternatives: Audi S6, BMW M5, Mercedes AMG E63 S, Porsche Panamera Turbo
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