YouTube Star Sells His Infamous Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170
RacerX recently made the tough decision to sell his beloved Demon 170. Here’s the real reason why.
For the 2023 sendoff of the Challenger muscle car as we know it, Dodge had something special planned. In case you missed it in your news feed, the Challenger SRT Demon 170 is a street legal monster that’s tuned for drag racing. The centerpiece is a 6.2-liter V8 with a 3.0-liter supercharger that makes an almost unreal 1,025 horsepower. Although unleashing the full 1,000+ horsepower requires running E85 ethanol fuel. That also happens to be where the “170” monicker originates; 170 proof is the alcohol strength of E85 ethanol.
Besides what’s under the hood, the Demon 170 also boasts a specially tuned chassis for drag racing and road legal drag radials. That’s not to mention extreme weight saving measures, like the lack of an included passenger seat. That all boils down to a searing 0-60 MPH time of just 1.66 seconds. One lucky owner is a successful YouTuber (real name Paul) behind the channel RacerX. At least until recently, that is.
It couldn’t get into the eights
Kudos go to RacerX for actually racking up some highway miles and drag racing his Demon 170, as intended. A big part of the Demon 170’s promotion was the ability to beat Tesla’s Model S Plaid in a quarter mile showdown. After a few hurdles — like an entire replacement engine — RacerX was indeed able to defeat the Spaceballs Tesla.
Paul later went on to a best-ever elapsed time of just 9.05 seconds at 150.45 MPH, but a personal goal to best Dodge’s own best quarter mile time of 8.91 seconds went unfulfilled. Granted, RacerX is at a disadvantage because he lives in Florida. The sunshine state’s hot, humid weather just isn’t ideal for making maximum horsepower compared to the crisp, cool charge of air in northern climates. That said, Florida is an ideal place to own one particular SRT Demon 170 that was turned into a convertible.
Most Demon 170s are garage queens
The decision to “break the seal” and enjoy this car couldn’t have been easy. Dodge manufactured a total of 3,000 Demon 170s for the U.S. market, plus another 300 for our neighbors in Canada. Seemingly, many of the 3,300 pavement pounders were either hidden away in collections or instantly flipped for ridiculous prices.
According to the auction tracking site Classic.com, more than one dozen similar vehicles were resold during late-2023 and early-2024 for prices exceeding $200,000. That’s quite a profit on top of the original window sticker price of $96,666. Lately, though, resale prices have fallen. For example, there are many closed sales in the $125,000 to $140,00 range over the past 12 months. Note that even the cars at the lower end of that price spectrum have less than 1,000 miles and most have under 100.
It wasn’t paying its way
RacerX doesn’t say how much he received for his high-profile Demon 170 except to mention that he “didn’t really make a ton of money” on the sale. As far as his reason for selling, the 1,000+ horsepower Challenger apparently wasn’t cheap to own. We know that he took out a significant loan to purchase it and the insurance premiums must be outrageous, right?
With those overhead costs in mind, the Demon 170 just wasn’t paying its way via YouTube revenue. “If the car isn’t bringing in the [YouTube] views and the money to sustain itself and hopefully give you a little bit of a return, it’s not really worth having,” says RacerX. If you’re interested in buying this track terror for yourself, the car is now at Jerry Ulm CDJR in Tampa, Florida.
Photos: RacerX/YouTube
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