Ken Miles may know a thing or two about family… since he has one. But what does he bench press and does he look cool shifting into the 19th gear during a drag race? Exactly. If you want to humiliate Ferrari at Le Mans in the 1960s, you need a mid-engined Dodge Charger Daytona with a giant Hellcat motor, preferably built by SpeedKore.
That sounds impossible, I know. But the only things they haven’t tried in Fast and Furious are giant robots and dinosaurs… and giant robot dinosaurs. So don’t tell me a mid-engined Dodge Charger Daytona being driven by Dom doesn’t make sense.
You may have heard of a company called SpeedKore, which makes some of the best custom Mopars on the planet. They made one for Kevin Hart, the Charger “Hellucination” for Ralph Gilles, and also Vin Diesel’s mid-engined Charger which featured in Fast 9.
Because Mopar fans would come after them with pitchforks if they butchered a real Daytona, today SpeedKore partnered with digital artist Abimelec Arellano on this mid-engined Charger Daytona, which features a whole lot of cues from the world of 1960s Le Mans racing.
The 1969 Daytona and the 1970 Superbird were based on regular muscle cars, the Charger and Road Runner. But they featured bespoke nose cones and rear wings designed to make them go faster on the track and take Nascar trophies away from Ford. They are considered royalty among car collectors, and a Daytona with numbers-matching 426 HEMI power is worth its weight in gold.
The Charger that the Daytona is based on has already been turned into a crazy mid-engined monster for the movie industry. So this feels like a natural step, yet nobody has made such a rendering before @abimelecdesign.
The rendering features a large window into the soul of the mid-engined machine, just like the 1968 Dodge Charger “Hellacious” from Fast 9. But the Hellcat supercharged motor also features an exotic-looking set of exhaust headers, which were directly inspired by the Ford FT40 Mk2.
They also remind me of the DeTomaso for some reason. Also on full display is the transaxle layout. Maybe the Daytona wing doesn’t make much sense when most of the car’s weight is already over the rear wheels. But we’re too distracted with how good the 68 Charger taillights look when flanking the exhaust pipes.
Like the recently featured “Mastodon” build we featured, this is an almost satin black finish which only highlights the crazy aero design. Check out those center lock wheels, which are very Shelby Cobra-like. And because lightness is king on the track, the Daytona’s pop-out headlights have become integrated into the streamlined body, underneath flush lenses.
