From Scat Pack to Badassador: Jose’s Relentless Climb

The rain’s hammering down on Interstate 65 as I pilot a 2025 Charger through another Alabama storm system. I’m on the phone with Jose Pretel, and when he starts telling me about the torrential downpour that totaled his Chrysler 300C, I cut him off.

“Don’t you put that voodoo on me, man!”

He laughs. He gets it. But there’s a story worth telling here, and it starts way before that accident, back when Jose was just a kid with a PlayStation controller and dreams of bringing the cars he was building in video games into the real world.

Jose’s automotive education began at the same place many modern enthusiasts start: Need for Speed and Midnight Club. We’re talking mid-2000s, when he was somewhere between 12 and 15, deep in those games where customization was everything, and you could build whatever fantasy ride your imagination could conjure.

“That’s probably where the love of cars really comes from,” Jose tells me. “I was young enough to know I liked cars, but I couldn’t drive one yet.”

He also watched NASCAR religiously, back when you could actually follow it on Sundays without needing a scheduling algorithm and a prayer. The combination of virtual builds and real-world racing planted seeds that would eventually grow into something substantial.

In Jose’s case, pixels only satisfied him for so long. When friends started getting their licenses, the games gave way to the real thing. First came a manual Hyundai Elantra – the kind of beater most of us cut our teeth on. Nothing special, but it was wheels and freedom, at 16 years old, it was everything.

The real awakening to what Dodge would eventually mean in his life came on vacation in California. Jose and his girlfriend needed a rental for the trip. When the rental agency handed them keys to a Dodge Charger with a 5.7 HEMI^® engine, they had no idea it would change everything.

They drove the Charger down the Pacific Coast Highway, and Jose was done for.

“When I came home and climbed into my Hyundai, I was like, wow, this feels so muted,” he recalls. “It doesn’t feel like the driver’s experience I just had.”

That gnawing feeling, that sense of missing something you didn’t know you needed until you had it, drove him to action. Within months, he’d traded the Elantra for a 2014 Chrysler 300C. Same 5.7 HEMI growl, plus some high-end features that made daily driving actually so much better than he had experienced with his first car.

Jose didn’t stop there. He swapped the entire front of the 300 to 2017 specs, new headlights, upgraded grille, the full treatment. He added CarPlay, upgraded the sound system, did some exhaust work. By the time he was done, it looked and sounded like a brand-new 300 with personality to spare.

He was 22. The 5.7 HEMI engine was plenty fast at that point in his life. He drove that car for three-and-a-half years, loving every mile. Until the rain came!

South Florida, 2020. Jose was running between real estate photography jobs when the sky opened up. Not regular rain, torrential, can’t-see-thirty-feet-ahead Florida rain. He was on I-95 when the 300 broke loose, spun and hit the wall backward. The accident resulted in a total loss.

Here’s where the story takes an interesting turn. It’s 2020, his real estate business has slowed down because people don’t want strangers in their houses during a pandemic, and Jose has time to think about what comes next.

He’d already started posting pictures of the 300 on social media. Nothing serious, just casual posts that got modest engagement. But the seed of an idea had taken root. “I really want to go ahead and buy a Scat Pack, and we’re gonna do some social media stuff with it,” he told his girlfriend.

She was supportive. Also skeptical. “She kind of said, ‘You don’t have to lie to me, you could just tell me that you want the car,'” Jose laughs.

But he wasn’t lying. Before they even brought the Scat Pack home in December 2020, he’d already set up @onebadscat.

The timing was perfect. Scat Packs were absolutely on fire in 2020: accessible performance, a proper V8 soundtrack and a price point that didn’t require selling organs to bring one home. Combine that with the global reach of #Dodge and #Mopar hashtags, and you’ve got a recipe for growth.

“Never underestimate the power of hashtag Dodge and hashtag Mopar,” I mentioned.

“The Scat Pack platform was definitely purposeful,” Jose agrees. “Those cars were super hot, so part of it was showing up, and the other part was having a hot product and taking advantage of a current trend on social media.”

Jose attacked social media with the same obsessive focus most people reserve for their day jobs. He posted at least once a day for two straight years. Sometimes twice a day. Sometimes three times on weekends. By the 90-day mark, @onebadscat had over 10,000 followers.

By January 2023, he’d posted 800-900 times and cracked 300,000 followers.

“Most people don’t understand the amount of work that goes into it,” I say. “They just think we’re playing around with cars.”

“That’s kind of what it’s supposed to look like, right?” Jose counters. “It takes so much work to make it look casual.”

His background in real estate photography gave him an edge; he understood composition, lighting and how to make everyday moments pop. He was creating content he’d actually want to watch, filming the Scat Pack in ways that showcased what made these cars special.

The work paid off. By late 2024, @onebadscat and @onebadhellcat were approaching 800,000 total followers. Jose and his now-wife had launched merchandise that actually helped fund their evolution: upgrading from the Scat Pack to an SRT^® Hellcat. This time, it wasn’t an insurance payout making the decision. It was the success of the platform they’d built together.

“Yeah, it was super fulfilling,” Jose says. “We have grown from being just an idea to being something that actually reaches people and creates real opportunities.”

In October 2024, Jose saw a Dodge Badassador application. He’d filled out sponsor applications before with zero expectations. You submit; it vanishes into the void. Life goes on. But he figured, what the hell. His 800,000 followers were all Dodge people. Seemed like a natural fit.

A few weeks later: acknowledgment. Then interviews. Then selection.

“I was surprised,” Jose admits. “There are so many people submitting applications, I didn’t expect a callback.”

He’s driven the upcoming SIXPACK models. He’s creating content with official Dodge backing, doing exactly what he’s always done, just with improved access and potentially bigger opportunities.

Looking ahead, Jose wants to keep honing his craft. More long-form YouTube content. More cinematic Instagram pieces that play like short films. Whatever format lets him leverage his photography skills to create something unique.

“That’s what’s next for me,” he says. “Continue creating content that I would find interesting, that I would want to watch, and deliver it on a bigger and bigger platform.”

From Need for Speed to the Pacific Coast Highway to a totaled 300C to 800,000 followers to SRT Hellcat ownership to Badassador status, it’s the kind of progression that sounds like fantasy until you realize it’s built on relentless consistency and genuine passion.

Jose started posting about cars because he loved them. He chose the Scat Pack specifically because it spoke to him personally, and he knew it would resonate with a global audience. He showed up every single day for two years, creating content that showcased what makes these machines special. He turned a hobby into a platform, a platform into a business, and a business into official recognition from the brand he’d been championing all along.

The kid who fell in love with virtual V8s grew up to make real ones his career.

Sometimes the best stories really do write themselves. You just need someone willing to put in the work to live them!