Vid: Motor City Monster

Photos by Scott Paddy

Detroit is the home of real American muscle so when Robert Awcock began his hunt for a car to bring him back into the modified car scene, that seemed like the logical place to begin searching.

That being said, his choice of location was where that logic stopped as once he laid eyes on this downright diabolical 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE, he knew it had to be his.

The original owner happily filled Rob in on the history of the car and as the tale was spun, the lust Rob felt towards the car grew and grew

It had started out as a highly optioned, factory black 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE with air conditioning, leather interior and a 383ci CID Magnum V8.

Completely rust free and offering the perfect base to build from, the previous owner went all out removing the stock 383ci V8 and replacing it with a 528ci Ray Barton hemi block filled with the ideal shopping list of forged goodies and topped off with a pair of ported Dart dual plug alloy heads.

Of course 8.5L of bent-eight muscle is considered child’s play in the motor city, so a BDS 14/71 blower was slapped on top and overdriven by 11% for good measure, with the cyclone of compressed air combusted along with sorrow-drowning servings of alcohol fuel to make a whopping 1585hp!

The car had also been fitted with coilovers all ‘round, a serious ladder bar setup and big ol’ Wilwood brakes. I don’t think I need to get any further into the specs but suffice it to say that it was a very well sorted car and you can understand why there was no umming and ahhing on Rob’s part!

So importing arrangements were made and after a couple of headaches that saw the Challenger imported minus the blower with a stock bonnet and wheels on it, this black beast hit our shores, with South Tweed Performance reassembling it to its U.S. specs.

Rob was understandably itching to fire her up so you can imagine his delight when after the long wait it burst to life on the dyno.

“We had to wait until 6pm for the industrial area we were in to quieten down before we could fire it up,” says Rob. “When we did, oh boy, it was like an instant adrenalin rush! We did a couple of power runs up to 7000rpm, and the sound through the four-inch collectors was just insane. The dyno owner’s dad has a friend who lives over 5km away from where we are, and he dead-set told us he could hear it from his house!”

The beast is obviously cranking out a veritable truckload of power, but at this point in time, Robert and his dyno operator can only guess that it is still making as much as it did in the States. On the dyno run in the video above, the motherboard inside the computer that was collecting the data broke in half from all the vibrations the screaming motor created! “With a bigger magneto and a bit more tweaking, close to 2000HP wouldn’t be out of the question!” laughed Robert.

Sadly, this awe-inspiring piece of machinery is up for sale, as Robert has found himself flat out with work and is in the market for something a little less animal that he can hit the streets with and enjoy when he gets home from his work trips. If you think you can tame the wild beast that he has sitting in his garage, feel free to swing us an email and we will put you in contact with him. Just make sure you can handle it first!