Compared to the 2021 Audi R8, the 2022 Dodge Charger Hellcat Redeye has more of everything: extra displacement, power, and torque (courtesy of a blower), an additional gear ratio and—Captain Obvious here—two more doors, but the muscle car costs half the money. Then again, the German toy is significantly lighter and packs twice the clutches and the driven axles. But which one is quicker?
We’re about to find the answer to the question above with the help of a (drag) racing encounter that takes the Dodge away from its drag strip playground.
The two velocity beasts share an unprepped surface, as they would in the real world. In fact, the whole adventure is geared towards this, offering us a multitude of scenarios.
And even though the driver of a front-engined, RWD machine should know better than to battle a midship, AWD velocity tool from a dig, YouTuber Sam CarLegion also covered this challenge in the name of a complete battle between the two beasts.
There’s even an improvised G-force meter, which comes in the form of an air freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror of the Dodge, which might just deliver a quicker way of assessing the vehicle’s acceleration than any other, accessing dedicated SRT menus included.
Hellcat? Perhaps you’d prefer one of these glorious slabs of America inside a Rolls-Royce
Note that the Canadian vlogger’s straight-line battles usually involve more reasonably priced machines, but we don’t expect too many complaints about this 1,400 horsepower match.
Of course, most of the runs involved a rolling start, with the Audi and the Dodge kicking things off at about 50 km/h (31 mph). The variety came from using the different driving modes of the Challenger Hellcat Redeye and the R8 (i.e., the traction control was set on and off, while we get to see what happens when the drivers use the paddles or leave the trannies to their own devices) and yes, these can make quite a difference.
As far as the aural side of the story goes, we have to admit that picking between the supercharged song of the 6.2-liter V8 animating the American and the naturally aspirated growl delivered by the German’s 5.2-liter V10 is nearly impossible for us, so we’ll let you be the judge of that.
