Dodge Magnum Sets World Record with 8.439 Quarter-mile Time
Hemi-powered sport wagon might be the quickest car to carry the Magnum name.
A 2006 Dodge Magnum ran an 8.439 at 160.33 miles per hour in the quarter mile at the fifth stop on the 2018 Modern Street Hemi Shootout series schedule. That car was driven by Gary Rhudy and owned by Nate Jenkins, and while that quarter mile time is the best recorded by any modern Magnum sport wagon, it is likely also the quickest quarter mile time run by any car wearing the Magnum name, including the big coupe offered by Dodge in the 1970s.
History of the Name
The Dodge Magnum is best-known today for being a sleek, powerful sport wagon that is based on the same chassis architecture as the modern Dodge Charger and the modern Chrysler 300. The car shown blasting down the track in the video above is clearly one of the modern wagons, but some people aren’t aware of the fact that the the wagon was first introduced by Dodge back in 1978 as a sporty two-door coupe.
The 1978 Dodge Magnum was technically the replacement for the Dodge Charger, serving as a roomy, sporty two-door in an era where big, rear-drive cars with V8 engines were disappearing from the American landscape. That coupe was powered by three different V8 engines including the base 318, the mid-range 360 and the premium 400, but due to the budding emission requirements of that era, all of those engines were sluggish at best.
Even with the lack of power, the Magnum was a great choice in the late 1970s for someone who wanted a big, V8-powered coupe at a time when Ford and Chevy were going with smaller cars and smaller engines.
The Magnum coupe was replaced by the Mirada in 1980 and as rear-drive cars completely vanished from the Dodge lineup through the mid-1980s, the both of these cars were more or less forgotten. In fact, rear-wheel-drive Dodge cars as a whole were forgotten until the mid-200s, when the LX platform reintroduced the Dodge Charger, the Dodge Magnum and the Chrysler 300.
Like the original car to wear the name, the modern Magnum was a rear-drive model (with available all-wheel-drive in some configurations) with an a few powerful V8 engines, but rather than a big coupe, the new model was a big wagon. The most exciting of the modern lineup was the SRT8, with 425 horsepower from the 6.1-liter Hemi, which was the basis for the record-setting race car on display here. Both photos of the black Magnum were provided by Rhudy himself.
Nate Jenkins’ 2006 Magnum
The 2006 Dodge wagon in the video above is owned by Jenkins and driven by Rhudy. Rhudy is a hot-shoe of sorts, having stacked up all sorts of trophies from his success in the Modern Street Hemi Shootout over the past few years. He knows how to get a car down the drag strip in a hurry, so in addition to racing his Dodge Challenger R/T, he campaign’s Jenkins’ wagon.
This 2006 Dodge Magnum was built and tuned by the modern Hemi experts at High Horse Performance. Under the hood is a 404-cubic inch BES-built engine, ThiTek cylinder heads, an HHP custom camshaft, a ported 6.1 intake manifold and a ProCharger F1A94 supercharger. The power is sent through a TH400 transmission and a Driveshaft Shop 9-inch rear differential to the 275mm Mickey Thompson tires on 15-inch wheels.
In the video above from Gary Rhudy’s YouTube channel, he runs the incredible record time of 8.439 alongside another wicked Mopar performance car and while the he lost the race, Rhudy reset the record for the world’s quickest modern Magnum. Also, we have been unable to find any proof of one of the 1978-1979 coupes running in the low 8s, so this is likely the quickest car to ever wear the Dodge Magnum name.
Photos of 2006 Magnum for Dodge Forum: Gary Rhudy
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