The 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 was built to celebrate the end of the road for the current Challenger and its V-8 engine. The car generates a massive 1,025 hp when running on E85 fuel, but Hennessey Performance is already working on an upgrade that will lift output to as much as 1,700 hp.
Hennessey CEO and founder John Hennessey is among the first in the country to take delivery of a Demon 170. His car is number 25 out of a build run thought to number around 3,000 cars for the U.S. and an additional 300 for Canada.
He and his team in Sealy, Texas, plan an upgrade package called the Demon 1700 Twin-Turbo, which as the name suggests will swap out the stock supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 for a twin-turbocharger setup. However, instead of simply swapping the supercharger for a pair of turbos, Hennessey plans to install a new blueprinted twin-turbocharged engine, together with a new transmission and an upgraded rear differential to handle the extra power.
The original components will be shrink-wrapped and stored in a crate for safekeeping so the car can be returned to stock if desired.
John Hennessey’s 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170
Full specifications will be announced at a later date as development is ongoing. However, Hennessey targets hypercar performance. In addition to a 1,700-hp output, the company also promises a quarter-mile time of 7.9 seconds at 175 mph or more.
Hennessey plans to perform the modification on just 12 cars. Pricing hasn’t been finalized but will lie close to $200,000, and that’s not including the price of the donor Demon 170, which retailed for about $100,000, including destination and a gas guzzler tax.
The Demon 1700 Twin-Turbo upgrade is the first project from the newly established Hennessey Special Operations (HSO), which caters to low-volume builds and even one-off requests. HSO plans to work on just 15-20 vehicles per year, and becoming a customer of HSO involves an application process and the willingness to spend a minimum of $100,000 on the upgrades alone.
