Flooded New Dodge Demon 170 Set To Auction
For many, the Dodge Demon 170 is far out of their financial reach. Not only did Dodge price it with a starting MSRP of $96,666 (clever number, right?) many dealers have famously gouged shoppers wanting to own the most powerful production Mopar muscle car in existence. So this might be a chance to get one for a non-insane price, although the future viability of the Demon 1470 is questionable.Listed incorrectly on Copart as a 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye, this car at minimum will be a sought after source of parts. After all, the Demons of both generations have certain components you can't get on any other Mopar.
Plus, with ownership of the vehicle, you can order parts from Dodge that other Dodge owners can't. You're not just buying this muscle car, you're also paying for the VIN. That alone could positively impact the final bid.
If you look at the photos included on the Copart website, it looks like this Dodge Challenger Demon 170 is still wearing at least some of the delivery wraps. Also, the very obvious yellow splitter guard is still present, although some guys keeps those on their car indefinitely.
But it appears this muscle car is brand new, perhaps with delivery miles on it or slightly more than that.
That bad news is from the interior it sure looks like the thing spent some time completely underwater. Because of that, the onboard electronics are questionable. But the big question is can those be repaired/replaced and other parts of the muscle car reconditioned so this thing can still be usable for the long run?
If not, then it might become a parts car and/or resource for the new owner to order parts not available to non-Demon 170 owners.
Just how much would you bid on this Dodge Challenger Demon 170? Bidding hasn't opened yet and Copart hasn't said when it starts. But we think a lot of people are going to at least be watching when bidding does begin.
See the lot listing for yourself here.
Images via Copart
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Rather, it was to develop a brand identity around the high-powered engine while offering less powerful — and therefore more affordable — versions of the vehicles, which would be boosted by the positive perception of the Hellcat. "It was not about selling many of them, right?" Francois said. "It was about creating a halo for the brand." A meandering stream Francois built a campaign called the "Brotherhood of Muscle" for the Hellcat and aimed sales toward gearheads. Commercials were set to the tune of hard rock music and full of American, gas-guzzling bravado — a contrast to the up-tempo scene in west Detroit where Motley's Pretty Penny showed up. Buyers like Motley weren't the target audience. To Francois, the "Brotherhood of Muscle" was launched to capture a "gearhead" audience and reshape the perception of the Dodge brand. In 2015, Dodge launched a Hellcat advertisement with a Phil Collins soundtrack. At the time, Kuniskis told the Free Press the Hellcat was built to be a positioning statement — to "send a very strong message about the brand personality and attitude." Francois, who has put musicians such as Bob Dylan and Eminem behind the wheels of Stellantis vehicles in Super Bowl spots, knows that music sells cars. "I personally am not a hard rock or a heavy metal guy, I really don't know anything about that as a European," the French marketing executive said on a video call from Italy. "But I know that it is a good sound for Dodge." And Dodge, advertised with the sounds of wailing guitars, successfully rebranded as a high performance American manufacturer. As Francois put it, the brand went from the mainstream to its own stream. Since 2015, though, the stream Dodge carved out for itself has meandered through America — and through Detroit — and captured a different audience with a different soundtrack. Country? Rock? No way The Hellcat, advertised with hard rock, become fashionable in the rap scene, especially in Detroit. Through a confluence of local affinity for the Detroit Three automakers, the inarguable fun that comes with driving the machine and a rapper's tendency to buckle into the fastest, coolest cars, the Hellcat became a hip-hop mainstay. During a recent ride along with the Free Press, Mohammed Mahmoud — everyone calls him Mo — wasn't playing classic rock or country music. If he wanted to listen to country, he said, he'd be driving around in a Ford F-350. When he drives his 2023 Dodge Charger Jailbreak Hellcat, though? "Always when you're driving this car, you're 100% playing rap music," Mahmoud said. "You've got so many rappers that are rapping about these cars, and they're popular on social media the same way they're popular in music." As he blasted down West Fort Street and Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit, that was exactly the scene. Mahmoud played a few songs by Detroit-based rapper 42 Dugg, coincidentally turning the stereo on moments before the rapper name-dropped the Hellcat in his 2019 song "Dog Food." As Mahmoud bent corners around Campus Martius, the song narrated the moment: "Baby, we in Hellcats." And somehow, despite booming speakers, squealing tires and a heavy law enforcement presence due to a Tigers home game at Comerica Park, Mahmoud and the Free Press journalists in tow avoided attention from the Detroit police officers lining the blocks. To Mahmoud, attracting attention from enthusiasts (a group that sometimes includes police officers) is the reason he drives his Hellcat. "You want to get attention? You've got to get one of these," Mahmoud said. He loves the attention — and he drives like it — but his Hellcat means more. The car, like many other cars in the Motor City, tells a story about his family's roots in the automotive industry. Mahmoud grew up as a car-loving kid, looking up to his grandfather, who worked for Chrysler for more than 35 years, he said. His brother, his cousins, his grandfather — they're all car guys — have bonded over his ride. Mahmoud's cousins regularly film skits with the Hellcat and post them to social media — a family affair that has netted tens of millions of views. Though Mahmoud allows his cousins to take the car out whenever they want, his grandfather, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with it. "I pulled up, and I remember the smirk on his face," Mahmoud said. "He's sitting on the porch, and he's just smirking. He looked at me, he's like, 'Take it back. Go get rid of it ... I know what this vehicle is.' He's like, 'If you want to fly, go get in an airplane.' " Mahmoud flies in his Hellcat. In fact, Mahmoud was tracked down for this story after he flew toward a Free Press reporter's vehicle on Interstate 94, pulling alongside and wagging his tongue at the driver before speeding away. Driving the way he drives might raise most people's blood pressure. Not so for Mahmoud. "To me, cruising is just stress relief. Some people go to get a massage. Some people got to go on vacation," Mahmoud said. "To me, you just, like, put the radio on. I can just cruise — drive (an) hour, hour and a half. You can clear your mind. You have fun with it. You go back home and you're refreshed." 'This is all part of the culture' Jay Johnson, a 35-year-old Detroiter in the crowd at Lelo's show on the west side of Detroit, brought his HEMI Dodge Charger to the car meet and was pleased to see it featured in the backdrop of the video shoot. While it's not a Hellcat, Johnson said he bought his HEMI V8 Charger for a few reasons. For one, it's a car he knows is "decent." He's owned four Chargers in his life, and he said he can rely on it for equal doses of fun and dependability. Another reason Johnson bought the V8 Charger? "These cars, they influenced us," Johnson said, referencing models made by the Detroit Three and the halo created by the Hellcat. "The motors, the interiors, you know, our grandparents working at Chrysler. All those elements had an impact." Johnson said he wasn't compelled by the hard rock, American-muscle advertising of the Hellcat. He didn't buy his Charger because pop singer Billie Eilish drives a Dodge, nor did he buy the Charger because he's fond of Phil Collins. The allure came from a slightly different place, rooted in his family's automotive history in Detroit, like Mahmoud, and an aura Johnson perceives around Dodge's muscle offerings. "Growing up in Detroit, you know we love the fast money, the fast cars, the fast life," Johnson said. "Like I said, we kind of grew up on appreciating that. Growing up, what kid didn't like fast cars?" Surrounded by cars and loud music, Johnson said the youthful energy of a kid who likes fast cars never quite left him. "This is all part of the culture," Johnson said, gesturing toward the cars and artists scattered through the lot at the Detroit car meet: young people in designer jeans, combat boots and tiny shirts; rappers, painters, DJs and even an older gentleman scrambling around with a carton of cherries, offering the fruit to anyone who asked. Similarly, Motley's Pretty Penny — the V8 Charger's bigger, badder cousin — has flourished in the rap scene. In June, his Hellcat won second place at the Rick Ross Car Show in Atlanta, hosted by the multiplatinum, nine-time Grammy-nominated rapper. In contrast to Motley's and Johnson's insider perspective into the rap scene of Detroit, Interscope Records Vice Chair Steve Berman knows the Detroit rap game from the outside. Berman might be best remembered as the record executive Eminem "shot" and argued with in recorded skits on his albums, but those were only skits; Berman is alive and well, and in a conversation with the Free Press, he said that the decades of gritty automotive culture of Detroit has seeped into the region's rap music. "What is represented in Detroit is really a foundation for an incredible depth of story," Berman said. "I feel like the foundation of what Detroit represents is so important and impactful as a story of the world." And the Hellcat — a car Berman described as "timeless" — stands to tell "the story of America," he said. Berman compared the earth-shaking engineering of the Hellcat with the longstanding musical creativity of Detroit. At the root of it, he said, is a universal story. "Like, it's tough to make it in the world. The world is hard. And you want to innovate. You want to be able to evolve as businesses evolve, as people evolve," Berman said. "Detroit, the cars, the music, it all represents that because it has had to embrace so many different challenges as technology changes, as business changes, as, you know, the world changes.' At the intersection of the music industry and the automotive industry — where cars sell music and music sells cars — there is an indelible connection that, Berman said, is greater than the sum of its parts. Likewise, at another intersection — the intersection of West Chicago Street and Hartwell Avenue — Lelo hosted an event that brought the two industries together. Music bounced out of the speakers. A crowd — young and old, Black, white and Middle Eastern — bounced to the sound. The multicolored under glow on Motley's Hellcat twinkled while attendees moseyed around the car, pointing fingers and asking questions. Minutes earlier, Lelo stood beneath a dangling microphone and prepared to record a music video. Flanked by a Mercedes AMG GLC 63, a tuned-up Nissan 350z and, of course, Johnson's Charger, he took a breath, wiped his face and locked his eyes on the camera held a few feet before him. Then the music started. Free Press videographer Justin Wan contributed to this report. Liam Rappleye covers Stellantis and the UAW for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him: LRappleye@
