This 9-Second Hennessey Demon Will Stalk Your Nightmares

The Dodge Demon is already pretty quick off the line, when you tick all the boxes for properly-warmed drag radials, slimline and lightweight front wheels, race fuel and the full-fat ECU map. Nothing is ever so fast that the speed merchants at Hennessey can’t make it faster, though.

Applying a HPE1000 kit, like the ones you can get for the Jeep Trackhawk and Chevrolet Corvette, results in the kind of madness that will see you running nine-second quarter-miles and smoking just about everything else that rolls up claiming to be road-legal. A maximum of 50 Demons will be modified this way, says Hennessey.

Filmed completing a 9.14-second run at 152mph at Lonestar Motorsports Park on 8 May, the HPE1000 Demon is now the fastest Demon yet to hit the strip. It’s so damn fast we must have blinked and missed it, because we’re a bit late picking this up. John Hennessey himself said:

“The 2018 Demon is a street-legal rocket from Dodge, but we wanted to take the car’s impressive track times to an industry leading level.

“Over the past several months we have worked to develop a low nine-second drag car that our customers can drive to the track, put on an impressive show with blistering 1/4 mile times, and then drive home in complete comfort.”

The HPE1000 upgrade lifts the 840bhp car to 1035bhp at the crank (880bhp at the wheels) and slingshots the bonkers creation to 60mph in a frankly silly 1.9 seconds. A 4.5-litre supercharger replaces the meagre 2.7-litre factory item. Long-tube headers, a higher-flow induction system and improved fuelling are all included as well, and it’s all covered by a 12-month/12,000-mile warranty. That’s 48,000 attempts to beat Hennessey’s record…