The Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat is a wild SUV, featuring a 710 hp supercharged V8 engine and four-wheel drive. In this video, the Team O’Neil Rally School folks aim to find out if it’s any good as a rally car.
Things kick off with a bit of skid-pad driving to suss out which settings are best for sliding around in the snow. It takes host Wyatt Knox a bit to figure out how to fully defeat the traction control and stability control by holding the “traction off” button while in “Track” mode. Once that’s done, the Hellcat is ready to eat without any electronic interference.
“It’s a ridiculous amount of power,” Knox remarks. He also comments on how well the Bridgestone Blizzak tires on the car grip both longitudinally and laterally as well. Those performance benefits give Knox the confidence to say that he expects to get around the hot lap “easier and quicker” than in most cars.
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Watching this 6,000+ lb SUV drift around a snowy rally course is fun regardless of final lap times though. Knox ends up doing the entire video in big chunky snow boots too and it doesn’t appear to negatively affect how easily the Durango gets around.
In the end, this big burly beast does the Team O’Neil Rally School course in 2:14.97 seconds. That places it solidly in third on the leaderboard but there’s more to the story. It only missed out on silver by 0.59 seconds. It’s staggering to think that it’s basically half of a second slower than a Subaru WRX.
Though that might be more of an indictment on Subaru’s poor handling of the WRX model than a resounding victory for Dodge. The first-place time on the board of 1:57.50 is a Ski-Doo MXZ which arguably shouldn’t even be there since it’s not a car. Nevertheless, this video is one great example of just how capable the Durango SRT Hellcat really is.