Hennessey Pits A Durango SRT Hellcat Against The Mid-Engine Corvette C8:

You might remember that the other day we posted a video from Hennessey Performance Engineering (HPE), showing a stock 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat taking on a stock 2021 Ford Mustang GT500 in a quarter-mile drag race. While the 710 horsepower all-wheel-drive (AWD) could produce a massive lead of the starting line, the much lighter 760 horsepower pony car would pass the seven-passenger SUV just before the finish line. Thus, proving that the hefty Hellcat-powered Durango can run with the fastest muscle cars in today’s market.

Over the weekend, HPE released two more videos showcasing the capability of the 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat in it’s stock form.

The first video put Dodge’s monster SUV on the dyno, to create a baseline for the HPE team before they equip the Durango SRT Hellcat with the company’s HPE1000 performance upgrade. After a few runs of the Dynojet AWD chassis dyno, the Hellcat put down 562 horsepower and 531 lb.-ft. of torque to the ground. Those are a lot different than the number that Livernois Motorsports and Engineering put down earlier this month, on their AWD chassis dyno resulting in 644 horsepower and 599 lb.-ft. of torque.

The second video from HPE, puts the stock Durango SRT Hellcat against the new mid-engined Chevrolet Corvette C8. A stock 2021 Chevrolet Corvette C8 produces 495 horsepower and 470 lb.-ft. of torque from its natually-aspirated 6.2-liter LT2 V8 and is capable of running to 0 to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds and has a top speed of 194 mph. The 3,366 lb. coupe is almost 2,000 lbs. lighter than the hefty Durango SRT Hellcat, so the Corvette has several advantages over the seven-passenger SUV.

Just like its race against the GT500, the Durango’s AWD system propels the massive SUV to an early lead. It takes the new Corvette almost the entire quarter-mile to catch up. The Durango’s AWD system also makes sure that it can take off consistantly, while the Corvette C8 faces tractions issues with its rear-wheel-drive layout.

This particular 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat has less than 500 miles on the odometer, which means none of the SRT Performance Page features like the Track modes or Launch Control were activiated when it races the C8. Proving, that out of the box, the much heavier and powerful Durango SRT Hellcat can dominate America’s newest mid-engined sports car in straight line performance without its fancy performance tech.

The results are the one-year limited-edition Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat is a force to be reckoned with at the drag strip.

Source: Hennessey Performance Engineering