A picture of The Hurst/Hemi Challenger Series 4 SRT8 has a bottom line on the sticker of about $70,000. It doesn't get pushed out of shape and it's pretty easy to steer, but you can still get rubber in the first three or four gears.
The 2009 Hurst/Hemi Challenger Series 4 SRT8 is everything you love about the muscle cars of yore, but with steering and brakes.
The 2009 Hurst/Hemi Challenger Series 4 SRT8 (let's just call it the Series 4) starts life on the Brampton, Ontario, assembly line with all the other Challengers. As an SRT8 model, our Canadian brothers install a 6.1-liter, 425-hp SRT V8 engine, six-speed manual transmission and all the other goodies that go into the OE product. That's the starting point.
Then it gets shipped to Hurst Performance Vehicles in California and they go to work, taking a perfectly good muscle car and--as the aftermarket has done since time immemorial--making it even better.
The meat of the transformation is a Vortech centrifugal supercharger, which raises peak power to 572 hp at the flywheel and 484 hp at the rear wheels.
So while a standard Roots-type blower will peak earlier and then fall off, a centrifugal unit will build quietly all the way to redline. On the road, you notice the difference. It feels almost like a turbocharger but with nearly no lag.
As with any very powerful thing--a big engine, lots of torque, fame--the hardest part of having it might be managing it all. With so much wheel spin, only the most skilled pilots will be able to squeeze out quarter-miles in the 11s and a 0-to-60 mph time of about 3.6 seconds, figures that Hurst says are attainable with this setup. The limited-slip diff helps, as do the massive, meaty BFGoodrich KDW Performance tires mounted on 20-inch forged billet aluminum Hurst wheels. And, of course, the big Hurst "Hard-Drive" shifter managing the six-speed.
We had a lot of fun doing drag-strip launches and trying to get rubber in all six gears. But after that, we took it where no muscle car was ever intended to go: a twisty mountain road. It did surprisingly well. The Eibach antiroll bars did their job well, minimizing roll commendably. The Eibach coil-overs were set for an inch of drop on our test car to give it that sinister look we're all after. Unfortunately, at that ride height, the tires scraped the wheelwell arches under heavy cornering. Since they come with adjustable spring perch heights, a few simple cranks on the perches could cure that problem. However, the shocks felt as if they could have used better control of jounce and rebound. As it was, the car tended to bounce a little more than it should have.
Oh, and then there's the price. With the gas-guzzler tax and delivery, the SRT8 is $42,736. The Hurst part of the equation, $27,350, brought our test-car total to $70,086. But that includes all of the trim stuff, such as Katzkin seats, Magnaflow exhaust, K&N Filter, Hurst rear spoiler, Hurst paint job, Hurst gold racing stripes, matching color car cover with matching Hurst racing stripes and a bunch of Hurst logos all over the place. And while it is a bit of sticker shock, it's a lot less than you could spend at Barrett-Jackson--and this car is about 100 times easier to live with than an original.
2009 Hurst/Hemi Challenger Series 4 SRT8
On sale: Now
As-tested price: $70,086
Drivetrain: 6.1-liter, 572-hp, 528-lb-ft, supercharged V8; RWD, six-speed manual
Curb weight: n/a
0-60 mph: 3.6 sec (mfr)
Fuel economy: n/a
Posts
RSS Feed (xml)
