The 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat is for Sinners

By Derek Shiekhi - June 25, 2015

Seven. That’s how many days I was scheduled for with the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat. That’s also how many hundreds of horsepower the biblically powerful coupe produces – plus another seven. Coincidentally, that’s the number of sins I committed in it.

Pride

I might be a sinner, but I’m not going to lie: I was proud to be seen in this ultimate Challenger. It makes you walk taller and your chest stick out farther because you know you have the keys to the pinnacle of Mopar might. I couldn’t help but be proud of Dodge, too. Its outrageous piece of Americana was conceived, engineered, and built in an age of tightening emissions regulations and greater focus on fuel efficiency. ‘Murica!

Lust

The Hellcat was a temptress in a Redline Red dress. There were times when my gaze would linger on the curves of its air-devouring hood or its ample rear end.

Inside its Black/Sepia cabin, which featured premium Laguna leather SRT seats and attractive contrast stitching in a few areas, I felt as if I could’ve picked up any woman on the planet. All I would’ve had to do was muscle through the Challenger’s heavy steering, pull up next to her at a stop light, and catch her eye. Although legroom was a little too tight to sit behind my 5’10” self, there was just enough head space for a couple of adults in the back seat…

Sloth

Often, I would stand outside of the Hellcat and just use its remote start system to hear it fire up. If the 6.2-liter supercharged HEMI had been sitting overnight, it awakened by making a sound that was similar to a demon fuming about being roused from its slumber.

The dual exhaust system with its Black Vapor Chrome tips emitted a delightfully bestial roar when I was up to speed on the road, but I found the blower even more pleasing to my ears. I didn’t want to pay attention to traffic lights, other drivers, or my own behavior behind the Hellcat’s flat-bottom steering wheel – I just wanted to hear more of that supercharger whine.

Gluttony

Given the Hellcat’s arousing looks and sound, I wanted to put more than the 500 miles FCA told me I was limited to on the Hellcat. I wanted to blast up and down toll roads and through the curves and sweepers and down the country roads of Austin, Texas all day and night.

As you can imagine, a car as powerful as the Hellcat was quite gluttonous itself. A 130.7-mile chunk of mixed driving left me with a 13.7 mpg figure.

Greed

With 707 horsepower and 650 lb.-ft. of torque in front of me, I wanted to rack up numbers on the speedometer that neither I nor the local police needed. I wanted them all – 80, 100, etc. I desired to have the entire road to myself so I could test the limits of the Hellcat’s different suspension modes, all of which (Street, Sport, and Track) yielded a stiff ride that was eager to tell me the size of the bump in the pavement I just ran over.

I didn’t want more car, though. The Challenger felt big in every way – from its generously sized cabin to its bulging hood to its front chin spoiler, which made parking tricky because I didn’t want to scrape the bottom of the front lip on a curb.

Wrath

It enraged me that there wasn’t a road long enough in my hometown that would allow me to let the Hellcat completely off its leash. At around-town speeds, I felt as if I had a nuclear bomb that I couldn’t use because I was in a laser tag match.

Occasionally, I would find a stretch where I could put my right foot down for a few seconds. In moments such as those, the Hellcat shredded through speeds above those typically used on the freeway. It became absolutely ferocious. When the eight-speed automatic was in Track mode, it hammered out shifts with a devilish grin-inducing mechanical violence.

Envy

Ironically, this red-blooded American muscle car made me envious of Germans. I wanted their Autobahn so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting pulled over for doing the speeds that this car was capable of hitting – and tempting me to achieve.

*The $66,370 as-tested price included the $500 Redline Red Tri-Coat Pearl paint, $1,795 Premium Laguna Leather SRT seats, $1,995 TorqueFlite eight-speed automatic transmission, $695 Uconnect system, $395 275/40ZR20 summer performance tires, $1,700 gas guzzler tax, and $995 destination charge.