Unless you’ve been living in your Y2K bunker for the duration of this century, you’re aware that the Fast and the Furious movie series is one of the highest-grossing film franchises in the world. Each movie is filled with car chases with customized muscle and modern exotics and every sequel seems to involve a bigger budget and crazier stunts that the one before. Vin Diesel’s character, Dominic Toretto, anchors the franchise. Over the course of nine films Toretto’s vehicle choices have varied yet the character has always displayed a heavy Mopar bias. He drove a street machine-style 1970 Dodge Charger R/T in the first movie in 2001 and in subsequent movies he’s driven a Charger Daytona, a Charger modified with long-travel off-road suspension, and a carbon-fiber-bodied Charger with a 9.0L DOHC Mercury Racing V8, just to name a few. That last Charger was known as “Tantrum” and was built by SpeedKore, located in Grafton, Wisconsin.

For F9: The Fast Saga, the latest in the series, the team behind the jaw-dropping cars wanted to up the ante in a big way. Dennis McCarthy, the Picture Car Coordinator for the film, decided to give Vin Diesel’s character his wildest ride yet. Automotive Designer Sean Smith was responsible for getting that vision into one cohesive plan. He penned Toretto’s supercar/musclecar mashup with the classic lines and hideaway headlights of a 1968 Dodge Charger, massaging away some of the unnecessary distractions like drip rails and then he sculpted wider fenders front and rear. The lines were familiar even if significantly reimagined, but the drivetrain took a wild turn. Rather than the traditional V8 up front, Smith penned a mid-engine design that would take advantage of the Charger’s generous wheelbase to mount a V8 longitudinally between the Charger’s signature C-pillars. That mid-engine arrangement centralizes the vehicles mass and puts more weight over the rear wheels rather than on the nose. It’s no secret that race cars use mid-engine layout for the aforementioned performance benefits, but it’s definitely not part of the usual Mopar muscle car recipe, until now.

Look up close at some of the movie cars built for previous Fast & Furious movies and you’ll typically see late-model V8 crate motors, but they’re usually not this brutish. Hellacious, quite appropriately, uses a Hellcat crate engine, something SpeedKore is quite familiar with. A ‘68-’70 Charger would typically feature a tunneled backlite with the C-pillars stretching back to the rear decklid. Hellacious has flush-mounted rear hatch that mimics the NASCAR superspeedway designs of the Charger 500 and Charger Daytona.

The 6.2L Hellcat Hemi requires lots of cooling. A Saldana radiator is mounted up front to cool the V8, while the rest of the coolers are arranged under the decklid. That includes a huge air-to-water charger cooler for the 2.4L supercharger.

The SpeedKore team, well-versed in crafting Pro Touring restomods and forming lightweight and strong carbon fiber into seamless body panels, was called on to make Smith’s design a reality. The film crew needed cars capable of nearly impossible stunts. Or at least close enough that movie magic could fill in the blanks. SpeedKore delivered. The team built nine movie cars: seven were used for stunts, while two were used with actors behind the wheel. When filming was done, SpeedKore checked its inventory and found it had a few extra body panels lying around. Might as well make a mid-engine Charger for parts runs, right?

This tenth car in the series, dubbed “Hellacious”, is owned by SpeedKore. Unlike a movie car that is typically built with either the performance needed to complete stunts, or the scene-stealing looks required for the hero car’s close-up, SpeedKore delivered both when they decided to build Hellacious. Inside and out, top to bottom, it’s gorgeous, and it has the brutal performance of Mopar’s meanest late-model muscle to match. So while you could think of it as the last of a series of ten special Chargers, it’s also a one-of-one build that truly pulled out all the stops. Let’s start with the obvious, the engine.

Just aft of the driver, sealed from the passenger compartment by way of a firewall, is a 6.2-liter Hellcat Hemi V8 crate engine. SpeedKore claims it produces 707 horsepower and 650 ft-lbs of torque, just like the factory says. However, one look at the exhaust tells you it’s belting out at least a little more. SpeedKore designed a set of longtube headers that turn up and back to leave plenty of room down below for the rear suspension. A pair of compact Magnaflow mufflers are the only thing quieting the beast, as the exhaust turns down and exits soon after. That’s another benefit of mid-engine packaging, a shorter route for exhaust gases means less restriction overall.

Cast your gaze just between the mufflers and peek down. You’ll see the Graziano six-speed transaxle that channels the Hemi’s power to the rear wheel. You’d typically find a transaxle like this behind a Lamborghini or Audi V10 and there’s even a raging bull and Audi’s intertwined rings cast into part of it. The transaxle offered enough strength to stand up to the burly Hemi and offers the driver quick gear selection through a gated shifter.

HRE built custom 18-inch center-lock wheels for Hellacious. In front, the 275/35R18 tires look rather normal, yet there’s no hiding the steamrollers out back. They’re a monster 345/35R18 and help get that power planted.

Like SpeedKore’s previous Charger builds, Hellacious uses a proprietary perimeter frame, but this one required special construction to accommodate the mid-engine placement. Despite the fact that there’s no Hemi between the front wheels like their typical Chargers —if you can call its carbon-fiber-bodied Chargers “typical”—SpeedKore relied on Detroit Speed for the front suspension and steering as it has for most of its recent builds. Detroit Speed control arms and spindles use QA1 shocks and six-piston Brembo calipers up front while a Detroit Speed rack and pinion connects the tires to the driver by way of an ididit steering column. In the rear, things naturally take a bit of a detour from SpeedKore’s usual method of supporting a solid axle with coilovers and a four-link. Instead, SpeedKore engineered a rear cradle to mount a double A-arm suspension from Race Car Replicas, this time using four-piston Brembo calipers.

Sean Smith’s design called for a much wider body, necessary to cover the incredibly wide 345mm rear rubber. Because it’s SpeedKore, the body is built from carbon fiber and attaches to the underlying Charger inner body panels in the same locations as its sheetmetal counterparts would. Huge molds minimize the number of panels required to complete the carbon fiber body, but SpeedKore uses a CNC cutter to trim its carbon fiber to the perfect shape and can even plan out the orientation to maintain the direction of the weave on adjacent parts, so even the seams are hard to notice. The unique flares one each corner feature cutouts that show off a bit of the tire tread. Finishing the carbon fiber bodywork is matte black paint from BASF Glasurit with a bronze R/T stripe that matches the HRE wheels.

The interior, now reduced to a two-seat cockpit, is a no-nonsense affair. A pair of low-back bucked seats use Simpson harnesses to keep the driver and passenger safe and snug, and the Hellcat’s vitals are presented to the driver with a set of Classic Industries gauges. Switchgear is comprised of simple toggle switches and brushed aluminum knobs in the dash. The standout features are certainly the gated shifter and the tall lever for the Sikky hydraulic handbrake, and even that has a sort of industrial looking knurled grip that you’d expect to see on a meat cleaver.

SpeedKore has the keys to Hellacious for now, although some of the company’s previous in-house builds have gone up for sale after they’ve been broken in. This beast may be up for grabs for the right buyer, if they’re persuasive. Until then, it will serve as a mid-engine, drifting ambassador for the company, making a loud, smoky statement in the best way possible.