Family Dream Cruising with 1514 of Dodge SRT® Hellcat Horsepower
2 years ago Owners + Clubs
One of the best aspects of being a gearhead living in Metro Detroit is the easy access to the Woodward Dream Cruise. On many summer evenings, a good time can be had cruising Woodward Avenue or even parking along the road to watch others roll by, but the week leading up to the legendary Dream Cruise raises the horsepower-fueled fun to another level. From the parking lots packed with show cars to the thousands of machines rolling down the road – many of which are doing gigantic burnouts – there is really nothing like it anywhere in the world.
I know many married couples in the Detroit area who enjoy participating in the Woodward Dream Cruise every year and over the years, we have many friends who came from other parts of the country to cruise as a couple. Most of them cruise together, either taking turns driving or one person drives the whole time. However, in the case of me and my wife, Amanda, we are both gearheads who want to be behind the wheel rather than riding shotgun. Fortunately, over the past decade, I have been able to schedule a fun test vehicle for Woodward weekend, so we each had “our own car” for the Dream Cruise. Prior to 2017, Amanda would drive our 1972 Demon 340 and since then, she has driven our SRT® Hellcat Challenger and I drove whatever test car I had at the time.
For the past few years, Dodge provided me with a test car for the Dream Cruise and for 2022, the brand sent me the car that will likely go down in history as the most powerful production gas-powered sedan ever – the Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye Jailbreak. With 807 horsepower and 707 lb-ft of torque, it is one of the most powerful American production cars ever; and when you look at four-door models with a gas tank, there is simply no rival to this car. All of that power makes for an awfully fun cruiser, complete with the Chiller system that helps keeps engine air intake temperatures low when sitting in traffic for hours, leading to the easy ability to clean the rear tires of any unwanted road debris. Making the Charger Jailbreak even better during the Dream Cruise is the unique configuration of exterior features, allowing this supercharged Dodge sedan to stand apart from the crowd.
With this beautiful test car on hand, we were able to hit the 2022 Woodward Dream Cruise with a Go Mango SRT Hellcat Challenger, a Indigo Blue Charger Redeye Jailbreak and over 1,514 supercharged horsepower between us.
Jailbreak – Monster Power and Premium Comfort
As you can see from the images here, my 2022 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye Jailbreak was painted Indigo Blue with twin silver stripes, silver wheels that were originally only available on the Daytona 50th Anniversary SRT Hellcat models, blue Brembo brake calipers and red badges on the grille, fenders and rear end. On the inside, my Charger Jailbreak test car had two-tone leather with light gray center sections and black trim.
The light gray seats were great on the hot, sunny day, as when we stopped to check out other vehicles along the route, the surfaces didn’t get as hot as the black seats in my SRT Hellcat Challenger. Fortunately, the Jailbreak has cooled seats, so even when spending long periods of time sitting in traffic in the heat, I had cool air pumping up through the perforated leather. We spent the better part of 6 hours on Woodward that day and the SRT seats kept me comfortable the whole time.
All Dodge Redeye models come with the intercooler chiller system, which diverts cool air from the air conditioning system through the intercooler. This helps keep engine air intake temperatures low and those lower temps lead to more power and more consistent power, even when spending hours sitting in gridlocked traffic. When cruising without the Chiller system engaged on the 80-degree day, the intercooler temperature in the Charger Redeye Jailbreak was around 95 degrees while the engine air intake temperature was around 125 degrees. Within a few minutes of engaging the Chiller system, the intercooler temperature dropped to below 70 degrees while engine air temps dropped to around 100 degrees, and those lower temperatures held steady for over an hour of traffic through the Woodward Loop, even with plenty of engine revving and perhaps a burnout or two.
Now, some of you are likely wondering how much gas we burned taking two supercharged HEMI® engine-powered cars to drive around the Woodward Dream Cruise for hours on end. On the highway, I got 22.8 miles per gallon on a 43-mile highway trip with the cruise set at 75, and over the course of a week of driving, including the hours spent in Woodward Dream Cruise traffic, the Charger Jailbreak with 807 horsepower averaged 12.6 miles per gallon. No one buys a Charger Redeye Jailbreak for fuel economy, but those numbers are pretty good for the power, the size of the vehicle and the driving conditions for the week I was testing the beautiful beast.
Couple Cruising in Dueling Dodge SRT Hellcats
When my wife and I tell our friends that we cruise in separate vehicles, many people find it odd, thinking that it prevents us from communicating. For those who have never been to the Woodward Dream Cruise, it is common to spend long periods of time next to the same vehicles, so we are often able to drive alongside each other, talking through the open windows when stopped. When we are cruising at speed, we have walkie-talkies that allow us to keep in touch when we aren’t side by side. Frankly, the majority of our conversation consists of things like “Hey, check out the Viper two lanes over on the right” or “There are two bicycle cops on the sidewalk to our left … hold off on burnouts for a second” or “That was a really nice burnout.”
Having two cars in traffic actually makes getting around a bit easier, as when someone lets one car move from lane to lane, the other car simply passes the first and tucks into place. My wife has a great deal of experience driving high-performance cars and we have been cruising together for almost two decades, so we know what to expect from each other when cutting our way through traffic or when out on the open road at speed. While we have the capacity to communicate, we rarely need to do so when moving at speed and we are both able to exercise quite a bit of horsepower, so it should come as no surprise that we have a good time when cruising in tandem with over 1,500 horsepower of Dodge SRT Hellcat muscle.
Whenever we drive pretty much anywhere in Metro Detroit with a pair of muscle cars like this, we get lots of looks, but since we are both very familiar with the platform, we are good about making the most of the intake whine and the exhaust crackle without breaking the speed limit or constantly doing burnouts. We know how to put on a legal show of horsepower for any onlookers, but more importantly, we both love driving, so we both have a great time when we are out cruising together. While I truly love driving, I know that my wife loves it as much as I do, so after watching her roast the tires on Woodward for 30 seconds, I take great pleasure in seeing the smile on her face in the mirror when the smoke clears. We are both enjoying ourselves as well as taking great pleasure in seeing each other have the same level of high-performance fun. I also thoroughly enjoy watching my wife serve fresh gapplesauce to the majority of other drivers who opt to line up against the SRT Hellcat Challenger, but there isn’t much of that during the Woodward Dream Cruise during the actual cruise itself.
In the end, cruising in two different cars might prevent some of the small talk, but the trade-off for communicating via two-way radio is well worth us both being able to enjoy piloting a high-performance car at the Woodward Dream Cruise. For any couples who both enjoy driving, even if you don’t have access to two vehicles and you have to rent something spicy from Turo, Dream Cruising with your significant other in separate cars is an experience that is well worth the cost.
