7 Reasons Why You Really Don't Want to Own the 2015 Hellcat Challenger

The 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat is one mean looking muscle car and with a new supercharged 6.2L Hemi offering 707 horsepower and 650lb-ft of torque, this new super-Challenger is hard not to love. Even before the specs were announced for the Hellcat Hemi, this new Mopar muscle car had become a mainstay of desktop wallpapers from dorm rooms to the workplace and everything in between.

Unfortunately, while the Hellcat Challenger is surprisingly affordable for a car of this performance level, the price starting north of $60k makes it an unlikely purchase for most people. Some of those people feel bad about the fact that they cannot afford the most powerful American production car ever, so I put together 7 good reasons why you really don’t want the 707hp Challenger SRT Hellcat.

7 Reasons Why You Really Don't Want to Own the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat

1. Dodge Challenger Hellcat Is Expensive – With a price starting at $60,990 for the manual transmission Hellcat Challenger and $61,390 for the automatic transmission, the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat costs roughly double the price of the average modern muscle car.

2. It's Terrible in the Snow – Unless you live in an area where there is never any rain, snow or cold weather, the Hellcat Challenger is only going to be a reliable vehicle for half the year at best. The Challenger Hellcat set to the 700+ horsepower mode easily spins the tires at almost any speed on a warm, dry day so driving in the rain is tricky and driving in the snow would be little more than a comically frustrating experience. Even driving on a cold winter day where the roads are completely clear and dry, the simple fact that the tires and surface are so cold would make traction a nightmare. Some muscle cars can comfortably be driven year round – the Hellcat Challenger is not one of them.

VIDEO: Watch how this famous cross country racer test-drives 2015 Challenger Hellcat.

3. You Will Spend a Fortune on Dodge Challenger Hellcat Tires – the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat comes with 275-40ZR20 Pirelli P Zero Nero tires all around and while they can be expertly used to get the big Challenger into the low 11s, it is also very, very easy to get the tires spinning. It is blissfully simple to smoke the tires and anyone who buys a Hellcat Challenger will most certainly spend some time roasting the rear tires. In looking up those tires online, I found a price of around $260 per piece – and that doesn’t include the cost of having them installed.

4. You Will Spend a Bigger Fortune on 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Gas – Chrysler expects that the 2015 Challenger SRT Hellcat will return around 20 miles per gallon on the highway, but you have to also consider that at wide open throttle, it burns through 1.5 gallons per minute – there is great potential for very poor fuel economy. Now, I would love burning every cent of that fuel cost, but buying, owning and driving the Hellcat every day while flexing its muscles is going to get very expensive in a hurry.

Hellcat Galleries:
The 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat in TorRed
The 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat in Sublime

5. You Will Spend a Fortune on Insurance – Even if you are an older individual with a spotless driving record, the cost of insurance coverage on the most powerful American production car of all time is going to be very high. As for younger drivers, insuring a muscle car is expensive – insuring the most powerful muscle car ever will likely be astronomical.

6. Other Muscle Car Owners Will Hate You – Do you have friends who own a Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro or even another Dodge Challenger? If you get the Hellcat Challenger, you wont have those friends anymore, as they will quickly get tired of you stomping them and making them look bad. For the same reason average women hate supermodels – average muscle car owners will hate you when you own a Hellcat Challenger.

7. It Just Isn't for Everyone – Sadly, while it would be hard for many people to admit, a 707 horsepower street car simply isn’t for everyone. The Hellcat Challenger has so much power that when shifting into 4th gear on a road course at high speed, the back tires still break loose and spin. Starting from a stop and even giving the Hellcat Challenger a gentle jab of the throttle will spin the tires and bring the back end around in a big hurry if not handled correctly. It is easy for someone who has never driven a car like this to assume that they could drive it every day, but the Hellcat simply packs far too much power for the average driver to safely and responsibly handle.

DON'T MISS: Watch and Listen to the 707hp Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat in Action

As you can tell, some of these 7 reasons why you wouldn’t want to own a Hellcat Challenger are obvious and other are obviously a joke. In all reality, the 707hp Challenger is a remarkable marvel of modern American engineering so of course every gearhead would love to own one and hopefully my 7 reasons – as absurd as they may be – will help some of you feel better about the fact that you won’t be buying one anytime soon.

However, we can all dream…