Story of success - The Challenger SRT Hellcat and the journalist
The Challenger SRT Hellcat and the journalist
In early 2023 the world was just shaking off the stress of Covid and a prevalent motoring journalist from the UK was trying to make a story where he would travel from one end of the United States to the other. We will call him Jethro. So, Jethro had a plan, he would land on a Monday morning at JFK airport in New York and travel all the way to Las Vegas where he would do a challenge against other cars at “The Strip”. Great plan, the only problem was Jethro’s choice of car. He wanted to choose a vehicle which was reliable enough to cover huge distances in comfort while at the same time beating prepped drag cars at the strip. Jethro spent months researching the situation – hours on the phone with marketing teams in Detroit, endless budgeting and planning where he would be able to sleep and eat. He wanted a Hellcat, the quintessential American muscle. The car had to be a Hellcat, a Challenger. The life of an automotive journalist is much less glamorous than what you would expect from reading a magazine or watching a YouTube video. It basically boils down to bargaining with marketing people about what you can and cannot say and eating whatever you can from a petrol station on the side of the road. Jethro knew he was going to have this problem, but he set off for the new world early last July together with Tommy, the cameraman. As soon as they landed, they were greeted by absolutely no one and took a yellow cab to the dealership in NY they were in contact with. The problems they expected were the agreement contracts with the dealership about what they were allowed to say and not say about the car, the ones they did not anticipate were related to the keys of the car. You see all Hellcats come with two key types – a black one and a red one. The black key limits the car to around 500 hp and not the full 717 hp. This was not going to be a problem for the drive across the country, but the Las Vegas part was going to be a real problem. The lady responsible for the transaction was uncooperative as in her mind the Hellcat already had all the publicity in the world and did not need these two to beat on the bright red monster in her showroom. Anyway. Our two heroes set off towards Las Vegas with just the black key. Elvis blaring through the 19 speaker H&K sound system – oh, were they in the groove. Three days later Tommy and Jethro were in the Nevada desert nearing Las Vegas and they got a call from their fixer in Vegas – Ron, he had the ultimate, purpose built street drag cars from all of Vegas and Reno lined up for them – a Copo Camaro and a Cobra Jet were ready and waiting for them, he had also pulled out some of the best of all the classic and well known drag cars out there – a 1996 SVT Cobra, a 54 Gasser, and a K24 Turbo swapped Del Sol. The boys were going to have their work cut out for them at the strip. Throughout the whole journey they were in constant communication with the Mopar marketing team and they were promised to get the red key, however a small mixup with a certain Federal Express service put the guys in a situation, they only had a day to shoot in Vegas and drag the Hellcat against all the best of them and they needed the red key, but due to the mixup the red key was about to arrive a day too late. Tommy got on the phone with their contact at Dodge who allowed them to call an independent locksmith to program a red key to the car, although the marketing contact was a bit skeptical. Later that night an older F150 was parked outside their motel and out of this truck came Linda, a seasoned Las Vegas locksmith who had just recently purchased the Abrites Diagnostics for FCA key programming package containing the FN022 license. As soon as she connected to the car, she was able to program the red key. Sadly, the boys had to part ways with $ 350 out of their budget so this meant that their fancy dinner at Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant was out of the question. Back to Big Kahuna Burger it was for them. Thankfully they had the coveted red key and were going to at least have the much needed 717 hp for the next day. Thankfully everything went great the next day at the drag strip and the final shot of the Hellcat going head-to-head with the COPO was placed on the front cover of the popular magazine Jethro and Tommy work at.
