Brampton, Canada… You’ve probably never heard of it but you should have. After all, none other than Wayne Middaugh is a born Bramptonian, and he is the only curler to have won the Canadian Men’s Curling Championship in three different positions.
Then there’s Middaugh’s cousin, Peter Corner, who was a member of the 1993 curling ‘dream team’. Yes, in Canada there is such a thing. Guess curling runs in the family…
So, possibly Brampton’s two greatest sons, but not for long. This Ontarian city’s latest claim to fame is the 707bhp Challenger SRT Hellcat, and now, its cousin is joining Chrysler’s 2015 dream team, the Charger SRT Hellcat.
See, Chrysler Canada’s Brampton
plant manufactures the mad Challenger, and has just added the 707bhp Charger to its portfolio too. That means America’s two most powerful cars are Canadian.
You could stamp their steel ‘Made in Elbonia’ and we’d take ’em; when it comes to cars we at wheels don’t discriminate. (Unless they’re Renault Mégane CCs. Those should all be rounded up and crushed.)
Anyway, now the secret is out that the Charger SRT Hellcat is officially the most-powerful family saloon on the planet, and with an NHRA-certified quarter-mile elapsed time of 11.0 seconds (on street tyres!) plus a top speed of 328kph (not a typo!), it’s also safe to say this is the quickest and fastest saloon ever built, too. We just really took a liking to Canada for some reason…
The reborn Chrysler has been coming out with some great stuff since the 2009 bailout, and Dodge particularly seems to be carving out a cosy place for itself as one of the craziest carmakers around — we can’t imagine another company boardroom where some nutter gets up and says, “I know, let’s do a 707 horsepower family car!” and gets away with it.
Anywhere else they would’ve called security. Or maybe the asylum. We’re glad Dodge is completely out of it.
That’s why we now have a family car with a 6.2-litre supercharged Hemi V8, eight-speed rev-matching transmission, 390mm Brembo discs (bigger than you get on a Corvette), 20in forged wheels and Pirelli performance rubber, and a three-mode suspension system including a setting labelled ‘Track’, because why wouldn’t you do a few laps after dropping the kids at school and picking up the groceries?
The 2015 Charger SRT Hellcat also brings with it re-sculpted body panels, extra heat extractors in the bonnet and exclusive front and rear fascia loaded with LEDs.
Inside, the SRT guys added a three-spoke flat-bottomed steering wheel and wrapped most of the cabin in leather and Alcantara, plus there’s standard kit like the 18-speaker sound system, 7.0in customisable instrument display and 8.4in centre screen, improved soft-touch materials and ventilated seats.
It seems they really did think of everything, including 0-160-0kph in under 13 seconds. Someone please give the boardroom nutter a medal.
