To the surprise of literally no one who had been paying attention over the previous several years, Dodge decided to shove the Hellcat’s V8 into its three-row SUV, giving us the 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat. Did anyone need a three-row SUV with 710 hp and 645 lb-ft of torque? Absolutely not. Dodge had the engine, and it would fit, though, so why not? As long as it sells, who cares about practicality?
And while an SUV with a base price of more than $80,000 was never going to sell in numbers that rivaled the Ford F-Series, it ended up selling well enough that Dodge decided to bring it back for 2023. That pissed off some of the people who bought 2021 models thinking the Durango Hellcat would only be in production for a year.
In the right hands, though, the Durango Hellcat ended up being an absolute monster of an all-weather performer. Team O’Neil’s Wyatt Knox recently found that out when he got behind the wheel of one wearing a set of Blizzaks. Obviously, with that much power on tap, it was going to be quick in a straight line, but as Knox discovered, it also made one hell of a rally car in the snow.
You’d think the Durango Hellcat’s massive size would have been an issue, but that ended up not being the case. Instead, its course time beat both the Porsche Cayman S and even the Toyota GR Corolla, as well as almost every other vehicle they tested in the snow. In fact, it was only a half second behind the rally-prepped Subaru WRX they tested. It might not be what comes to mind when you think of a rally car, but as it turns out, the Durango Hellcat will absolutely rally.
