Nothing says an American pickup truck quite like a Jeep Gladiator outfitted with a 6.2-liter supercharged V8 Hellcat engine. And that’s exactly what we have here.
Jeep will sell buyers the exciting Wrangler-inspired pickup truck with FCA’s long-standing 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 engine with 285 hp at 6,400 rpm and 260 lb-ft (352 Nm) of torque at 4,400 rpm. A diesel will be added to the range soon, but it won’t churn out all that much power and certainly not enough for those who want something that can keep up with a Ford F-150 Raptor.
Fortunately, Dodge’s Hellcat engine has proved its versatility in recent years and fits perfectly into the engine bay of the Gladiator. If you want a V8-powered Jeep, it’s hard to think of any better combination than a Hellcat and a Gladiator.
Also Read: Driven: 2020 Jeep Gladiator Marks The End Of Boring Mid-Size Pickups
This particular example featured on the Drag Times YouTube channel has been tweaked to approximately 750 hp and sounds like an absolute animal too. Launching the car off the line is a little challenging as it encounters quite a lot of wheel spin and in one particular run, needed 5.7-seconds to hit 60 mph (96 km/h) while recording a quarter-mile of 14.3-seconds. Interestingly, the vehicle is quicker in rear-wheel drive with the traction control system switched off than it is in all-wheel drive model as the powertrain appears to slow down the car.
Evidently, this is no quarter-mile king due primarily to its massive weight. We can’t imagine the vehicle’s shape or this example’s 37-inch off-road tires help either.