The 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 won’t be the last gas-powered muscle car, but we wish it were. Not because we want to see them gone, but because muscle cars may have the most reverent following of any type of car that engineers developed in the gasoline age. And they deserve to go out in glory.
It will be the last gasoline-fed Dodge Challenger.
A Salute at the End
Dodge announced that it will cease production of both of its big rear-wheel-drive cars – the 4-door Charger and 2-door Challenger – at the end of the 2023 model year. Dodge is going electric. Around the same time it announced the retirement of the Charger and Challenger as we know them, the company unveiled an electric muscle car, the Charger Daytona Concept, that will light the way into its future.
It’s sending the current Charger and Challenger off with a series of Last Call special editions, any of which would have made a fitting tribute to the history of muscle wrought in fire. But this will be the last of them.
As Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis tells it, the 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 was a passion project from the people who love the Challenger most. Launched at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when a group of engineers met in a parking lot to talk it over, it’s meant to be the ultimate Challenger.
They knew they were going to say goodbye to the project that had, for many, been career-defining. They wanted the last one to be a legend.
Cartoon-Like Numbers
What did they create? A Challenger capable of putting out 1,025 horsepower and 945 pound-feet of torque and getting from 0-60 mph in 1.66 seconds. You read that right. And yes, purists, that’s a prepped surface with rollout.
It’ll do a quarter mile in 8.91 seconds, Dodge says – faster than a $2.9 million Bugatti Chiron SS. Dodge proudly notes that the National Hot Rod Association instantly banned the car from competition for running a sub-9-second quarter mile without a roll cage and a parachute.
The Dodge Direct Connection Store, however, will sell you a parachute.
The car wears a sticker price of $96,666, excluding destination and fees. It’s a cute trick, but good luck paying sticker price. Orders are open now and closing on May 15. Dodge hasn’t said how many it plans to build.
Every Modification Known to Mechanic Kind
It doesn’t post those kind of numbers on the way to the grocery store. In its street clothes (read, on premium gas), it makes 900 horsepower and 810 pound-feet of torque. The 1,000-plus horsepower figure comes in its super suit (that is, with E85 – the “170” refers to the proof number for E85’s ethanol content).
As you guessed, it’s got a Hemi. But not one any other Dodge can use. The 6.2-liter Hemi V8 has been paired with a modified 3.0-liter supercharger and a 3.02-inch pulley increasing boost pressure by 40% over the Challenger Hellcat Redeye Widebody.
It uses a TorqueFlite 8-speed automatic transmission “with an updated output flange to accommodate a larger diameter and stronger prop shaft,” Dodge says.
The suspension has been retuned with a drag mode in case you want to test that acceleration claim. It ships with Mickey Thompson ET Street R drag tires that are street-legal. If you’re the kind of muscle car enthusiast who knows tires by their names and you’re not familiar with that set, there’s a reason. It was developed for this car. They’re 315 mm at the rear and 245 mm at the front. Engineers pulled off the front fender flares to accommodate them (and to save a little weight).
They’re only good up to about 150 mph, which the engine can easily exceed, so you’ll need to invest in another set if you plan to test the top speed on a track.
A power chiller helps cool the engine down afterward.
Exterior and Interior up to You
Many of the other Last Call models have signature paint jobs – the King Daytona comes only in its signature orange, the Black Ghost in black with a white chevron on the tail. But Dodge will build you a Demon 170 in any of 14 colors. It gets – we’ll let Dodge explain it because it’s perfect – “a unique reworking of the original Demon badge featuring a 170-neck tattoo and new E85 representative yellow Demon’s eye.”
Yes, the last Dodge Challenger has its own neck tattoo.
About Those Leprechauns
Enthusiasts, weirdly, had been expecting a leprechaun. Dodge teased the car’s reveal for weeks with cryptic YouTube videos of muscular leprechauns and numbers that didn’t make sense until the specs were revealed.
Why? Kuniskis told reporters at the car’s launch that he had a nightmare about Leprechauns, and he rolled with it. We’re not kidding. When you’re CEO, you can hire a creative team to animate your nightmares. Must be fun.
Inside, buyers get a yellow and red instrument panel badge with the car’s serial number on it. Four upholstery choices include full cloth, “premium Black Nappa leather and Alcantara or Demonic Red Laguna leather,” or a lightweight cloth-covered driver’s seat and no other seating for actual track use.
So yes, the last Dodge Challenger will boast four-figure horsepower, a price tag with 666 in it, and a neck tattoo. Of course it will.
The Culmination of Generations of Garage Engineering
It won’t be the last gas-powered muscle car. Ford has just launched a seventh-generation Mustang that will outlive the Challenger by years. We’re still waiting for Chevrolet to discuss the fate of the Camaro.
But honestly, this should have been the last muscle car. Not because there’s anything wrong with those other cars. But because the ultimate mission of the muscle car, from its birth in wrenching culture in the 1950s, was lots of speed at a reasonable price.
$96,666 might not count as reasonable in the end. But outrunning an ultra-rare $2.9 million exotic car for about 3% of its price? That proves the point every garage mechanic with gasoline-scented hands who ever installed an aftermarket part was trying to make.
If the muscle car fans of the world all hung up their wrenches and walked away at this point, they’d have made their point, neck tattoo and all.
