Mopar’s New NHRA Funny Car Gets Dodge Charger Hellcat Branding

Having 707 hp on tap is plenty for a street car, but nowhere near enough to hang in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Funny Car class. As such, the 2019 Mopar Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat NHRA Funny Car packs more than 10,000 hp. The drag racer inspired by the Charger Hellcat makes its competition debut at Bandimere Speedway in Morrison, Colorado, this weekend.

“Our job at Mopar is to put the best race car underneath our drivers and keep them winning. We know this new body, developed in collaboration with the Dodge//SRT brand and Don Schumacher Racing, will do just that,” said Pietro Gorlier, FCA parts and service head in a statement. “The changes made to this new Funny Car body will improve on-track performance and help us carry on the Mopar brand’s long tradition of success at the dragstrip.”

Driver Matt Hagan of Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) will have the pleasure of screaming down the track at the Dodge Mile-High NHRA Nationals Powered by Mopar.

“This new Funny Car body is something that Mopar and Dodge//SRT have put a lot of work and support behind, from R&D to wind tunnel testing,” said Hagan. “We improved on the body design. It was already a great design, a great body. But now, we’re going to have a little more downforce, a little more traction on these racetracks and it will be a huge performance advantage. We will be able to press harder with more downforce on the nose, which translates into huge amounts of downforce on the run.”

 

The car can hit 330-plus mph and cover 1,000 feet in less than 4 seconds, according to Dodge. Up front, a new carbon fiber and Kevlar splitter generates gobs of downforce to plant the rocket ride to the track.

“We made four good, solid runs in testing at Norwalk,” said Hagan. “We put the body through a lot of different things and were really, really pleased with it. I really think it’s going to translate over to performance on the race track, and hopefully more win lights in the future.”

Though it’s hard to see much of a resemblance looking at the picture above, a production Charger SRT Hellcat was used for inspiration to create the front end graphics and other design elements.

“We are really excited to run the new Mopar Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat body in competition, both in qualifying and the race itself at Denver,” said Don Schumacher, DSR owner in a release. “It’s been a great project, working together with Mopar, Dodge//SRT, DSR and DSM to get the whole project finished and done in this period of time. We are really looking forward to how it’s going to change our program.”

The hellish funny car will debut at Bandimere on July 20-22.

Source: FCA

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