Tom Bailey is Planning an SRT® Hellcat Redeye-Powered AWD Dodge A-100

We recently visited the shop of Tom Bailey, where we checked out his incredible Dodge Durango SRT® Hellcat project. That super sport utility vehicle features a fully custom rear-wheel-drive drivetrain layout, so while in the shop, I asked whether the Durango that his team is building came with the original drivetrain. For those who don’t recall, this Durango was provided to Bailey after being campaigned by DodgeGarage writer David Hakim in the One Lap of America event – back when it was called the SRT Pursuit Concept. Dodge built this one-off SUV with Redeye power specifically for that rally racing event back in 2019, so I wasn’t sure if the Durango came to him with that 797-horsepower engine.

Bailey gestured across the room to where the supercharger lid was visible and said, “Yes, everything is over there.” He then asked if I wanted to see what he had planned for the drivetrain, and of course I did. He took me into a storage garage off of the side of the main shop, where he showed me the 1970 Dodge A-100 shown here. Right now, this vintage van is being used to store many of the parts removed from the Durango, including all of the interior parts, but his plan is to install a long list of components from the Durango SRT Pursuit Concept into this classic Dodge van.

The Dodge A-100 pickup holds a famous place in motorsports history, with Bill Maverick Golden doing quarter-mile wheelstands with the legendary Lil Red Wagon for decades. That classic pickup had a supercharged HEMI® engine mounted in the bed, with the weight located near the rear axle for the best possible wheelstanding action. Bailey plans to use a supercharged HEMI engine, but his A-100 van will send the power to all four wheels.

The plan right now is to use all of the mechanical components from the Durango SRT Pursuit Concept, including the Redeye Hellcat HEMI V8 engine, the standard 8-speed automatic transmission, the factory front and rear differentials, the factory Bilstein adaptive suspension system and the Brembo high-performance braking system. He plans for the 797-horsepower HEMI engine to be mounted mid-ship, using the factory transfer case system to deliver all of that power to all four wheels.

A standard Dodge A-100 in stock form weighed just over 3,000 pounds, and while the modern all-wheel-drive drivetrain with a supercharged HEMI engine will add weight compared to the stock parts, we imagine that this old-school van will still weigh far less than a Durango or Trackhawk. As a result, even if Bailey keeps the engine relatively stock, this A-100 will likely easily be a 10-second vehicle – if not quicker.

Regardless of what the timeslips say, an antique Dodge A-100 with a Dodge Redeye engine, advanced all-wheel-drive, adaptive suspension and a massive braking system will come together to make this one of the best-performing A-100s on Earth. The svelte body of this van tucked over the big wheel-and-tire package from the modern Durango should yield pretty fantastic handling capabilities, so it will be far more than just a straight-line rocket.

There is no planned date for this project to get underway, as the current focus is his monstrous Durango SRT Hellcat build, but we are sure that once Tom Bailey and his team turn their attention to this 1970 A-100, the end result will be well worth the wait.

2 Comments

ffoust

So he is destroying a 1-off Dodge that would have been very valuable in the near future? Makes sense.