My name is Theo and I live in Sydney Australia. Since I began to drive back in 1980 I have owned seven GM Aussie made cars apart from A 69 Mach 1 and a another Australian made Ford but have been relatively loyal to the GM. When Holden ceased production of the Australian made cars back in 2017, a year later I was bored and wanted to buy another GM product and since Holden stopped production I looked at the C8 that was coming out in the US and towards the end of 2019 put a deposit to buy one at my local dealership. However that became a long and procrastinated drama but to cut a long story short because of the delay the Australian version of the C8 was predicted to come out in 2022, I decided to look for another American muscle car. Theo only cars that were available at that stage was the Mustang that came already right hand drive and the Camaro SS or the ZL1. None really excited me so I employed an importer who eventually found me a B5 Dodge Challenger Hellcat Redeye SRT in California. It was second hand so I avoid new car taxes. It had 8000 miles on it and due to Covid breaking out and due to the Porsche Dealer at Woodland Hills that was selling the car put the car for sale without a clear title and to cut that long story short the car took 8 months to arrive here in Australia. The car was delivered to me finally in February of this year. I just cannot relay to all car buffs out there my excitement of owning a car of this calibre. I bought it totally unseen and without driving one because we do not commercially import the these cars. The closest model would be the 300C which has now also ceased and the Trackhawk which is also not coming here as well. The most powerful car I have owned and still have one is a HSV GTSR Maloo which when it came out in 2017 has 474KW and 815Nm of torque. Without exagerrating I am probably the only one that owns this car with this configuration in all of Australia. I know that a few Hellcat Demons exist and a few scat packs but no Redeyes. Before the latest lockdown which has now lasted over three months, I was taking it out to a few cars n coffee outings and a few car meets but my car was the only one there, and the buzz it creates is amazing.

 

Welcome to DF! Beautifull car! My son is looking for a widebody hellcat. Hard to find even here in the states.

 

Is it because of this chipset shortage or is it because of this pandemic that is affecting production?

 

Both. Problems with production due to the pandemic, also with shipping, for the same reason. Without the chips, can't build the cars.