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Ah, the Hellcat. Perhaps no other car has spawned so many drag racing videos than the Dodge Charger/Challenger Hellcat with its supercharged 6.2-liter SRT V8 engine making 707-horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque. Thanks to its ridiculous horsepower rating, the Hellcat engine is becoming a common engine swap candidate. In fact, Jeep couldn’t resist swapping the Hellcat engine into its own Grand Cherokee SUV and calling it the Trackhawk.
The Trackhawk and the widebody Challenger Hellcat are both new for the 2018 model year and legendary speed shop Hennessey has just put the two head-to-head in a drag race. While Hennessey is famous for taking crazy cars and making them crazier (including the Trackhawk), this drag race is between two completely stock vehicles to see which of these two very different cars with identical engines stack up against each other in the quarter mile.
Despite hauling more weight than the Challenger (5,258 pounds to the Hellcat’s 4,448 pounds), the Trackhawk jumped off the line quite a bit faster than its muscular competitor and held that lead through the rest of the race. It’s because the Jeep is all-wheel drive and the Dodge is rear-wheel drive. Delivering all of that power and torque to all four wheels rather than just two clearly makes a big difference in off-the-line acceleration.
Fanboys could (and surely will) argue forever about how the Hellcat would do against the Trackhawk if it had a longer drag strip or how the zero to 100 mph time might be better in the Dodge, but the Jeep clearly wins this round. The SUV is quicker in the quarter mile than the muscular car.
