Throwback: Taking a Dodge Challenger Hellcat and a Christmas Tree to 174 MPH Hennessey Style
by Kirby Garlitos
Christmas day is literally three days away, and if you haven’t set up your Christmas trees yet, then you’re in a lot of trouble. Fortunately, there are ways to get a tree up and standing in your living rooms in no time. You can buy a plastic one in Walmart and set that one up, or you can go to a Lowe’s and get a natural one. If you decide on doing the latter, John Hennessey of Hennessey Performance has a suggestion on how to buy one quickly and transport it at 174 mph.
Of course, you’re going to need a fast car to do it, and that’s exactly the point of this video from the American tuning company. Part of the demonstration involves mounting temporary roof rails on the roof of a Dodge Challenger Hellcat Widebody. Once the rails are mounted, the next step is to strap the actual tree on it and head to Continental Tires’ test track in Texas to see how fast the Challenger Hellcat Widebody can go while transporting a holiday tree.
The muscle car eventually hits 174 mph, an impressive figure considering the cargo it’s carrying. It’s also just three mph slower than the top speed Hennessey achieved on the Challenger Hellcat Widebody minus the rails and the tree. And if blasting along a test track at that speed isn’t enough, Hennessey decides to throw in a bit of tire smoke into the proceedings because, well, it wanted to.
If this is Hennessey’s way of greeting us “Merry Christmas,” then I suppose it did it the only way it knows how. Think of a Christmas theme, bring in a 707-horsepower Dodge Challenger Hellcat Widebody, add a gimmick, and blast off on a clear stretch of road.
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Dodge Challenger
Read our full review on the 2018 Dodge Challenger Hellcat Widebody.