The C8 Corvette may have been designed as more of a road course ringer than a quarter-mile devouring dragster, but that hasn’t stopped the mid-engine sports car from kicking butt and taking names in straight-line races. We’ve already seen countless videos of the C8 Corvette taking down more powerful rivals, like the Dodge Challenger Demon for example, and now Hennessey has uploaded a video of the ‘Vette beating on yet another Mopar product.
Hennessey recently received a Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk customer car, which will eventually be receiving an HPE1000 upgrade. They wanted to benchmark the supercharged SUV’s performance, though, so they decided to line it up against their C8 Corvette shop car for a race. They likely knew going into this experiment that the C8 Corvette would beat the big, heavy Jeep – but this race is more about just how well the SUV can keep up with the comparatively light and nimble sports coupe.
With a supercharged 6.2L HEMI V8 making 707 horsepower and 645 pound-feet of torque, a quick-shifting eight-speed automatic transmission and four-wheel drive, the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk gets a great launch in the race and manages to keep up with the C8 Corvette for the first 30 feet or so. From there on out, though, the Jeep really stands no chance at keeping up with the ‘Vette. This particular C8 is also equipped with the optional Hennessey stainless exhaust, which adds an extra 21 horsepower and 19 pound-feet of torque and pushes the output of the 6.2L LT2 V8 to just over 500 horsepower.
See how these two very different American performance cars stack up against one another in the video embedded below.
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Comments
The secret of Chevrolet C8 Corvette’s acceleration success is the 495 hp naturally aspirated 6.2L V8 engine and the 8-speed DCT; but one has to wonder whether the C8 can have similar success if the 8-speed DCT was replaced with the GM 10-speed automatic used in the C7 Corvette to save some money.
Since its a mid engine I’m pretty sure that makes it a trans-axle. I’m not sure if any of the old school hydra-matic transmissions are worth engineering to set up as a trans-axle. To me that DCT is one of the biggest selling points of the C8 and it would be absolutely foolish to explore other options.
Why would someone wonder that?