Here’s What James May Really Thinks Of The Dodge Charger Hellcat

DriveTribe produces some of the best online automotive content on the web. Their YouTube channel is chocked full of great videos, many hosted by Mike Fernie but a lot of them featuring Richard Hammond and James May. They are always entertaining, always informative and just good fun to watch. Particularly when May gets to take a look at a particular car, and roast it. This is something he regularly does with YouTubers cars, but also cars that belong to the DriveTribe crew.

Recently, he roasted Fernie’s BMW M5 estate, and now he has something else to roast as well. As May calls it, it is time for “be horrible to Mike” and this time, Fernie has brought along a 700 hp Dodge Charger Hellcat Widebody that is another DriveTribe machine. It might seem a bit weird to many that this is part of Fernie’s garage, as muscle cars aren’t really suited to the UK where DriveTribe and of course Hammond and May are based. But that won’t stop May taking a look at the car, and giving his unfiltered opinion of what is to many quite an impressive piece of kit.

Let The Charger Hellcat Roasting Begin

The 707 hp of the Charger Hellcat doesn’t impress May too much, as the Charger he drove in a Grand Tour episode a few years ago had around 1,000 hp in it. Think of this as the baby Charger really. DriveTribe/ Fernie hasn’t exactly bought the Charger, it is a long-termer for the crew. This gets May reminiscing about the time he had a Jaguar on loan, and he kept it for three and a half years. Mainly because they kept forgetting to get it back off him, and he moved house and didn’t tell them!

May instantly roasts the Charger though by calling it ridiculous. It is of course very big, very wide and left-hand drive, while UK cars are normally right-hand drive. It is also a bit of a scary car, and something that May calls a dog when referencing dogs are welcome at the pub he co-owns, where this video is filmed. The Bilstein adaptive suspension is one novel feature of the car, which May jokingly says makes it worth the price alone! When it is though 12 cm wider than a Range Rover, which are wide themselves and a car May owns, it shows how big it is.

A Choice Of Muscle Car To Borrow

The car comes from AEC who import these cars into Europe, and DriveTribe had a choice of car to borrow. This was the one that Fernie chose. The interior is interesting to say the least, with what May calls “caramel” seating, and the handbrake is a source of amusement as it is a foot brake, not a handbrake in the center console. The interior definitely feels a little bit cheap, but May says an interior that feels cheap is okay if it looks good when you are in it.

Car interiors are something May sort of roasts as an aside, as they are to him either very drab, or ludicrously leathery. There is no in-between for May. He isn’t keen on leather for the interiors either, May preferring Alcantara and the fabric seats in his 458 Speciale. In fairness, he has a point, and Alcantara is much more common than it was a few years ago. It is fair to say May is not keen on the interior of the Charger, perhaps indicating why it is around 60 grand, not around the 150 grand mark.

Under The Hood Of The Charger Hellcat

Fernie says you are paying for what is under the hood in this car. Amusingly, like when May roasted the M5 estate, a bottle of James Gin is under the hood of the Charger! Another hilarious plug. The engine in the car is “massive and lumpy” as May says, then they point out a weird object bolted to the side of the bay in a pretty sloppy way. Like a high-school metalwork project. May does like the orange paint in the engine bay though, so that is one plus point for the mad Hellcat.

What James May Really Thinks Of The 700-HP Hellcat

It is probably fair to say May isn’t the biggest fan of this car, perhaps less so than the M5 estate he had a look at recently. It is a massive lump of metal and pretty shocking that it is wider than the Range Rover that May drove to the shoot. It is better with the bottle of Navy Strength James Gin in the bottle of the Charger Hellcat, and this gin can be bought in the USA from us.jamesgin.com. Well we might as well plug it as well, and we’ve heard it’s pretty good stuff. We think May rates the gin higher than the Charger!