The 2025 Durango SRT Silver Bullet Is The LAST Hellcat-Powered Car Standing...And I LOVE It!

You know, life sometimes just comes full circle. I remember the first time I was here, just outside of Portland. Nathan and I came here to review a pair of Dodge Charger and Challenger twins. But what made them mind-blowing was the Dodge had stuck, get this, a 6.2 liter V8 Hemi under the hood, supercharged it, and called it a Hellcat. And that engine produced over 700 horsepower. Of course, eventually, FC at the time stuck that engine into a TRX and then into the Durango. But who would have thunk back then that the last Hellcat standing is this one? Yep, check it out. The Dodge Durango is the last Hellcat you can buy because the TRX is gone. Of course, the Charger Challenger twins are going electric. But right here, we have what I would say is one of my favorite powertrains of all time. I mean, you're looking at, well, let me show you. I mean, look at this. Just look at that. Over 700 horsepower out of a 6.2 liter supercharged Hemi. This thing is mind-blowingly powerful. And more than that, it creates incredible noise. When you're in the vehicle, and I'll show you that in a second, you get both the supercharger whine and, of course, that incredible Hemi Hellcat burble going out the back. And this, the special edition Durango SRT Hellcat silver bullet is the last vehicle that still has this mighty power plant. Now, you may be wondering, Roman, how much does this cost? And the answer is a lot. And I'll tell you at the end of this video because the silver bullet is not a beer in this case, but a special edition Durango. And what do you get when you get the silver bullet? Well, first and foremost, you get a lot of blacked out stuff. You get this blacked out hood. You, of course, get, come on over here, Carl, I'll show you. Pretty much blacked out six piston SRT wheels with the six piston calipers, a blacked out Hellcat logo. And in the back here, you get blacked out exhausts and more blacked out logos. Now, if you had asked me back in the day, is a three-row family hauler the last of the Hellcats, I would have just laughed at you. But here we are in 2024 with the 2025 Hellcat three-row six passenger vehicle. So before we take it for a drive, let me show you the inside and let's see if it actually works as something that can actually haul the family around. So inside the silver bullet, gets this really nice SRT Hellcat stitching in this burgundy leather. You get this really thick steering wheel. And this is where the car starts to show a little bit of its age. You actually have real buttons that do a lot of things, not just the HVAC. So of course, you've got a heated steering wheel, but you've got your different SRT modes. You've got a launch mode over here. And then you of course have autonomy or the beginning of autonomy. But this is the kind of car you wanna drive. This is definitely not the kind of car that you want to have it drive you. So we're gonna ignore that. And we're gonna look at the fact that it still has a traditional shifter. It has the latest, I'll start it up, and greatest Uconnect. But what really makes it special is, Cole, I'm gonna give you my microphone and you go back there and then give me a thumbs up and I'll give a little bit of the accelerator pedal. Well, there you have it, guys. Oh, that is just music to my ears. And with that kind of an engine note and with that much power, I can kind of overlook the fact that this looks somewhat dated now, especially the center dashboard, where you only have the digital part of the dashboard in the center and then you have real dials on the edges. And as much as I like that, I like real dials, when you compare it to today's minimalist styling that most cars have, with giant screen, this is starting to look a little bit dated. But in general, I love the fact that you have paddle shifters. Here's the SRT mode, so you can obviously change your transmission, your all-wheel drive, your stability control, your suspension, your steering to make it as sporty as you want. And if you're crazy enough, you can actually go to track mode, which turns the traction control off. But even with all-wheel drive, I would not do that today in the rain because this would make for quite the drive because once that supercharger kicks in, it's hard to put that power down. And I know that because we, of course, own a Hellcat Challenger. And every time we took it to the racetrack to get the fastest quarter mile times, I actually had to start in second gear because with two-wheel drive, it just spun the tires pretty much in every gear. And I miss those days and I miss that car. And one day, these are gonna be very valuable. Now, here's the thing. This is the third special edition that Dodge has built of this car. And in fact, when they first introduced it, they said it's gonna be limited to a certain number of units, number of cars. And then guess what? They came back the following year and did another set. And all the original owners who bought these were pretty well angry because they bought them thinking that they were gonna have a special edition vehicle, which they didn't. I think there was a lawsuit which eventually the owners lost. But like I said, now this is the third special edition of the Durango Hellcat. Does that make it any less desirable? Well, it depends. I mean, if you want the Hellcat engine and you want all that Mopar goodness, probably not. But if you're looking to it as an investment, well, the more they make, the less valuable each one of them becomes. But let's see how it works as a family hauler. So first and foremost, you have kind of a small sunroof that's also starting to kind of dated today. Most of the new sunroofs are, of course, across the entire roof of the car. But this is a serious performance machine. And you can tell that by this really comfortable, really thick steering wheel. And I love big old steering wheel wheels, especially now that we have a Cybertruck, which has a yoke. I'm sorry, but this is the way you wanna drive a car because you just feel like you're gonna take the thing by the scruff of the neck and you've got full control. You still have your USB and USB-C ports. You, of course, have wireless charging. Lit cup holders, eight-speed automatic transmission. And check this out, look at that, a built-in brake controller. How cool is that? I've gotten into some rather spirited discussions with some of the manufacturers who build these three-row SUVs that don't include a brake controller. And I'm trying to convince them that they need one if you wanna tow, in our case in Colorado, over 3,000 pounds. So it doesn't matter if the vehicle's rated to tow five, 10,000. If you don't have a brake controller, you gotta use a wireless one, and we have one, and they're kind of a pain in the butt. So let's jump in the back, see how much room there is. Captain's chairs, more connectivity, heated seats, more cup holders, and actually plenty of room back here. And you, of course, have your own three-zone climate back here so the kiddos or the grandparents can feel nice and hot or nice and cold, depending on their needs. A nice little cubby here for keeping stuff. Thank God we don't have those screens. Remember back in the day, they had screens in the back of the headrest so that the kiddos could play games. Now, of course, everybody has their own mobile screen, so why do you need that? And then let's see how big or small it is in the back here. This is the fun part, where you get to see a six-foot-two, not-agile Roman climb into the back. Let's see how I fit. First of all, I gotta move this up. You know, actually, not bad. Out of all the three rows I've recently been in, this is one of the best. In fact, I do have cup holders here, which is nice. And I have plenty of headroom. Let me move this down. You know what, I'm gonna just move over here. I would have plenty of knee room. Yeah, it's American, it's big, I like that. And then, is there room left over for your luggage or your sports gear in the third row, with the third row up? Let's find out. I think I'll do it the old-fashioned way, which is using the fob. And of course, this is the red key, which gives you access to all 700-plus horsepower, 645 pound-foot of torque, which is a lot, of course, driven by, driven to all four wheels. And yeah, you kind of pay the price here. So, not a huge amount of space in the back. A couple of roller boards, and let's see. Okay, I gotta see what's under there. We gotta see what's under there. Hey, actually, pretty good. There's a jack and a little bit more space for anything like, I don't know, something that's wet. Let's say a wetsuit, let's say your surfer, and this becomes your ultimate surf mobile. Not bad. All right, Cole, should we take it for a drive? See how he drives? Now, if you were to ask me, Roman, you've owned a TRX as a company. You've owned a Challenger, but you haven't owned Durango. But you have reviewed and driven this before. What's your favorite of the Hellcats? And I gotta say, I still love the TRX. It kind of combines the best of all worlds. So, you get the power, but you also get all-wheel drive, and you also get a truck, which is tall and which is useful in doing things besides just hooning the vehicle. So, I do miss our TRX more than I miss our Challenger. But at the same time, I've only had one son. And so, I guess I never really needed a three-row to haul the family and the kiddos around because the most I ever put in my car was me, my wife, my son, and maybe my parents. And if you do the math, that's five people, and you can do that in a regular two-row vehicle. But I do understand why people love this. When this came out, the Germans had been doing very powerful SUVs. Think about the X5M. Think about the Cayenne Turbo. Think about the Audi SQ5 or SQ7. And so, it was great to see the Americans kind of playing in that ballpark and doing it in a very American way. And you can feel that, and you can sense it in this car. So, the part that I love about any Hellcat, and I'll show you right now as soon as we get to a place where I can go just a little bit quicker, is, like I said, you get this incredible supercharger whine followed by an incredible exhaust note. It's like a one-two punch combination that just goes right to my heart. And it's so American and so power over, let's call it performance, because while this does have a lot of power, I actually was able to take the Trackhawk version of this, the Jeep, so I'm sorry, there were four of them, I remember, on the racetrack in Kota, the Circuit of the Americas, where they run the Formula One race. And as much as these cars have the horsepower to do, I think I was doing about 136 in that car, on the back straight, zero to 60, according to Dodge in 3.6 seconds, they maybe lack some of the subtlety of performance that the German brands did bring, or do bring to the table. But, you know, in America we have a lot of straight roads, and I'm not sure that we necessarily, you know, are gonna be tracking these vehicles, even though they are capable of tracking them. And obviously here you've got, you know, a full array of almost track-worthy, well, definitely track-worthy changes that you can make, like I said, with the complete track mode. So, out of the four Hellcats, sorry, Jeep, I didn't mean to forget about the Trackhawk, would I buy this? Is this worth spending the last dollar on the last Hellcat? And let me give you the price. It starts at $115,000, which, you know, when you compare it to the German competition, is affordable in some ways, but when you compare it to, you know, the American Mopar Muscle, is getting up there, because one of the great things about American Muscle, and American performance, is that while it's great in a straight line, it's also great, you know, when it comes to how much you pay to purchase it. I think we paid, oh God, it's been a while, but the Hellcat was $64,000, the TRX Hellcat, and the Challenger, and back then it seemed like a lot of money. I think that was like $60,000. So now you're looking at a Durango for twice that. And let's face it, even though it's a Hellcat, it's not as cool as a TRX, or doesn't have the same heritage as a Charger or Challenger. But it is the last of the breed, and I have to say that this is tugging at my heartstrings. Let me know in the comments below what you think. Has Dodge gone too far, or should they go farther? Anyway, I'm here just outside of Portland, actually in Washington, reviewing these cars for the Automotive Video Awards, so there'll be a whole bunch of these reviews. And I wanna thank the manufacturers for lining up, I think it's gonna be like 10 really cool vehicles for me to test drive. And I hope you stay with me as we do more AVA reviews, and I will see you on the next one. Ciao.