It’s tough to find a more hardcore enthusiast than Ralph Gilles, head designer at Stellantis, and it looks like he’s got a new toy. It’s known as Hellucination, and it’s a 1968 Dodge Charger with a carbon-fibre body and 1,000 horses under the hood.
It was created by SpeedKore, a performance company located near Milwaukee that specializes in light cars that go really, really fast. The shop makes its own carbon-fibre components, updates chassis to be lightweight as well, and then drops in modified drivelines tuned for each vehicle.
Hellucination is a 1968 Dodge Charger with a “Hellephant” engine, a Hemi crate engine available right from Mopar Performance. It’s a 7.0L V8 – although we prefer calling it a 426 for its cubic-inch displacement – with a cast aluminum block, forged steel crank, and supercharger, and with a torque rating of 950 lb-ft of torque.
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Mopar Performance says it can be dropped into almost any pre-1976 car, after you’ve paid US$32,260 for the engine and its “plug-and-play” installation kit. It’s based on the engine used in the 2015 Challenger SRT Hellcat, but this higher-performance version is aftermarket-only.
The engine pushes those ponies through a ZF eight-speed automatic transmission down to custom-made HRE wheels, 19-inch in front and 20-inch behind, wrapped with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires. The carbon-fibre body is covered in matte clear-coat to show off the weave. It’s limited to two occupants, protected by a roll cage, and the floor pans and wheel tubs are carbon fibre as well. Out the back are 1968 Charger taillights customized to LED lighting.
Ralph Gilles – who was born in New York but raised in Montreal – has penned the design of several vehicles, including the Dodge Magnum, Chrysler 300, and 2003 Viper.
He also has the bona fides to make the most out of what Hellucination can do, given that he participates in racing including the SRT Viper Cup Series, as well as piloting go-karts (and having ridden with him around a track when he set out to show me what he could do, I can attest to it). Let’s hope we can hit him up for a ride in this one some time.