797hp Dodge Challenger Hellcat Redeye Review | Too Crazy For The UK?

So the best way to do it is to reverse. It needs to be working so far. What can I get for you? I think of all my achievements in life, this has been the greatest. What's the best car to drive in a place like Great Britain? A Vauxhall Juke? Maybe a Nissan Mokka? Or even a fancy Range Rover? Nah. All a bit samey, aren't they? How about you drive something a little bit more exotic? Like this. This is the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye. One of the most powerful American muscle cars on the market. Where the standard Dodge Challenger Hellcat uses a 6.2 litre supercharged Hemi V8 to make 717 horsepower, this Redeye edition makes even more. 797 horsepower. And that's perfect for the drag strip, but what about for the highways and byways of Great Britain? That's what I want to find out. The first thing you notice about this car is it is a big old boy. 85 inches wide and 197.5 inches long. Now that's girthier than a BMW X5. And so manoeuvring in Britain can be a little bit tricky. Take parallel parking for example. Where a normal car built for Britain will fit in a normal British sized space with no bother whatsoever, the Dodge might struggle a lot. Getting into and then out of a space is an exceptionally stressful experience. Even bay parking isn't easy. Reversing into a space between two cars can become pretty annoying. And because the thing is so long and wide, you'll almost certainly be hanging out of that space by several inches and then be pressed up so close to other cars next to you that getting out will require a sunroof. Which this car doesn't actually have. As for filling up with petrol, you'll have to do that quite a lot. This car will chug its way through fuel at a rate of around 15 miles per gallon. And that's if you take it easy. Drive it enthusiastically and you might only manage 9 miles per gallon. With an 18.5 litre tank, that gives it a range of around 180 miles. Less than the average electric car. Finally, there's the fact this car is left-hand drive only. Mustangs you can get in the UK in right-hand drive, but not the Dodge. So that makes visiting your local drive-through a bit of a mission. Unless, of course, you're willing to think outside the box. So the best way to do it is to reverse. I say best. Strong word. Seems to be working so far. Can I have a cheeseburger and a black coffee please? Thank you. Breakfast of champions. Right, I'll try not to curb my alloys. Oh my god, I'm an actual genius. I'm an actual genius. Has anyone ever thought of this before? I'm very surprised they haven't. Hello? Thanks, man. It's left-hand drive, so I'd have to stretch over. Yeah, that's the one. Thank you. Hello. Thank you very much. Cheers, all the best. I think of all my achievements in life, this has been the greatest. Sometimes, honestly, I surprise myself. Who says you can't live with a left-hand drive American muscle car? It's also not the most practical car in the world. It has four seats, but the rear seats are next to useless. And the boot is 458 litres, which isn't horrendous, and the seats do fold down, but the shape of the boot opening means getting large objects inside is tricky at best. So, there's plenty of reason not to buy this car. But guess what? There's also plenty of reason to buy this car. First and foremost, look at it. I think it looks absolutely brilliant. I mean, if you live in America, then you're probably tired of seeing these things, but they stand out here in the UK and in Europe, because there's nothing else quite like it. This thing has just got presence for days. Everywhere you go, people will stop and stare. And then there's the engine, right? 6.2 litres, supercharged Hemi V8, and there's nothing else like it anywhere in the world. I mean, let's open it up and just listen to this. The supercharger sounds absolutely outrageous. There isn't another car on the planet with a supercharger that charismatic. In fact, while I've been driving this car, my phone has been going off, giving me alerts saying siren detected, because it sounds a bit like an ambulance. So good. Performance is absolutely staggering, and there's actually a pretty cool gimmick that dictates exactly how much power you get in this car. So there is a set of two keys, a black key and a red key. The black key gives you access to 500 horsepower, and the red key gives you the full 797. We're sticking with the red key today, because YOLO. That extra power comes because of extra cooling. There's an extra nostril on the top of the bonnet that feeds more cooling air into the supercharger, allowing it to make bigger power. And bigger power means bigger acceleration. 0-60 in 3.4, and if you find yourself a long enough stretch, 203 miles per hour. Although being able to put all that power down off the line is, at best, unlikely. Especially here in the UK. Let's do a launch and see what it does, shall we? Right left foot on the brake, right on the gas. Yep. Wheels have lit up, we are pulling and they're still spinning. Traction in this car is an absolute myth. But it is so much fun. I've got to give a shout out to the transmission. Nothing clever like a dual clutch gearbox, it's just a normal torque converter, but 8 speeds and it's incredibly responsive. It actually gives you a nice torque interruption when you change up, and when you change down generally, it gives you exactly what gear you want. Look at that! That's pretty decent. And I'll change up and then there is a shove. A shove in the back, every time you shift up. It's a really nice box to use. I mean, 8 gears is a little bit overkill in this car because there's so much torque. Honestly, it doesn't matter what gear you're in, it just pulls like an absolute train. You might expect the handling to be a bit agricultural, but you'd be pleasantly surprised. Okay, fair warning, even with the traction control switched on, it will light up the tyres without even trying. Go around a corner with even a little bit of gas on the exit and you're likely to end up facing the wrong way. But, that's part of what makes this car so much fun. It's playful, and if you know what you're doing, it's also very controllable. The steering in this car is quite interesting. In street mode, it's actually really light, almost too light in fact, but when you firm things up by putting it into sport mode, it does feel a little bit more natural, shall we say, but then in track mode it's probably a bit too artificially stiff. The thing is though, when you chuck it into a corner, what you expect is that the car would feel a bit messy, a bit loose, but in fact it stays reasonably flat through the bends, very composed through the corners in fact, and the balance is very nice. I'll cut to a few shots of me drifting a Hellcat on a private track, and you'll see exactly what I mean. It's a smoke machine. So, how much will a Hellcat Redeye set you back? Well, this particular car is available from AMS Dodge, an official Dodge dealer in the UK. It costs £130,000, which isn't cheap, but production on V8 Challengers is ending in 2023. So, this represents one of the last opportunities to own a Redeye like this. The car comes with a two-year warranty, UK navigation, and finance is available. Go check out AMS if you want to get your hands on this, or any other Dodge in the UK. So, would I buy a Hellcat Redeye in the UK as a daily? Well, you know what? A better option might be a Ford Mustang. They come in right-hand drive for goodness sake, but if you have incredible reversing skills, and a lot of money for petrol, and you want to stand out, then this Redeye is well worth looking at.