Instagrammer’s legendary Mopar may have met its fiery fate due a fluid leak.
The video above comes to us from the Instagram account of gtfivehunnit and it shows the graphics scene of a 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon burning on the side of the road. This isn’t from a video game or a movie; this really happened to the owner of one of the 3,300 840-horsepower Mopar muscle cars. As the images below from that same Instagram account show, the car is a total loss.
Background
Unfortunately, the details on the burning 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon are short. In the comments of the Instagram post, the OP states that the problem started with the transmission “grenading” while driving down the highway. When the transmission failed, it sprayed transmission fluid onto the exhaust, where it caught fire. We can clearly see a pool of flaming fluid on the ground in the video, so it is obvious that something broke and that something was filled with flammable fluid, but the OP does state that the cause of the fire is under investigation.
In any case, the driver got to the side of the road and began filming as the Mopar muscle car burned. Due to the time constraints of Instagram, we only see a short portion of the video, but the pictures below tell the end of the story.
The Aftermath
As you can see in these images, the Demon is pretty much destroyed. The entire front end of the car is burned, as is the majority of the interior. The car is most certainly a total loss, as the OP points out that “she’s cooked like a well done steak”.
Regardless of what happened to cause the fire, it doesn’t appear as though anything was done to try to put the fire out prior to recording the video. That would lead us to believe that they did not have a fire extinguisher in their Demon, and that brings us to a sort of public service announcement from your friends at DodgeForum.
Folks, a Kidde fire extinguisher designed specifically for automotive use costs $19.99 online. You might pay $24.99 at your local parts store. At that price, there is no reason that you shouldn’t keep one in your vehicle, whether you drive a $90,000 2018 Dodge Demon or a $1,500 Dodge Ram D150.
In the long run, the important part of this story is that no one was injured in the fire, as cars are replaceable while people are not. Of course, this car will be a bit harder to replace since it was a one-year model with production being limited in the US to just 3,000 units, but we would hope that the car was properly insured.
"Before I was old enough to walk, my dad was taking me to various types of racing events, from local drag racing to the Daytona 500," says Patrick Rall, a lifetime automotive expert, diehard Dodge fan, and respected auto journalist for over 10 years. "He owned a repair shop and had a variety of performance cars when I was young, but by the time I was 16, he was ready to build me my first drag car – a 1983 Dodge Mirada that ran low 12s. I spent 10 years traveling around the country, racing with my dad by my side. While we live in different areas of the country, my dad still drag races at 80 years old in the car that he built when I was 16 while I race other vehicles, including my 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and my 1972 Dodge Demon 340.
"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.
"Ten years ago, I left the accounting world to become a full-time automotive writer and I am living proof that if you love what you do, you will never “work” a day in your life," adds Rall, who has clocked in time as an auto mechanic, longtime drag racer and now automotive journalist who contributes to nearly a dozen popular auto websites dedicated to fellow enthusiasts.
"I love covering the automotive industry and everything involved with the job. I was fortunate to turn my love of the automotive world into a hobby that led to an exciting career, with my past of working as a mechanic and as an accountant in the automotive world provides me with a unique perspective of the industry.
"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.
