- A deputy clocked a Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat at a staggering 172 mph.
- At that speed, the SUV travels a football field in roughly 1.2 seconds.
- The supercharged three-row Dodge can eventually reach 180 mph flat-out.
Owning a performance vehicle is fun, but plenty of owners do so without ever testing one big claim: top speed. After an incident in Georgia over the holiday weekend, it would seem that one Dodge owner wasn’t content to leave that question unanswered. According to authorities, an officer clocked this driver at 172 mph (277 km/h). That’s just 8 mph shy of the Durango SRT Hellcat’s claimed 180-mph top speed. No, that’s not km/h. And no, that’s not a typo.
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia shared details of the stop on social media as part of a Memorial Day traffic safety message. While the post urged drivers to slow down, wear seat belts, stay off their phones, and avoid impaired driving, one number overshadowed everything else. 172 mph in a three-row SUV is an eye-opening figure, and even more shocking to hear someone did it on a public road without hurting anyone else.
Read: Police Troll Biker Who Filmed His Own 130 MPH Chase
It’s particularly wild because the Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat isn’t some stripped-out supercar or purpose-built track machine. It’s a family hauler with room for seven and enough cargo space for a Costco run. It also happens to pack a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 pumping out 710 horsepower (529 kW). Depending on trim and equipment, curb weight lands around 5,700–5,800 lbs (roughly 2,585–2,630 kg).
The Sheriff’s Office noted that at such speeds, a vehicle covers the length of a football field in well under a second. The reality is only slightly less alarming. At 172 mph, a vehicle travels around 252 feet per second, meaning it covers a 300-foot football field in about 1.2 seconds. That’s barely enough time to process that traffic ahead has even slowed down while barreling toward it in a three-ton SUV.
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To Dodge’s credit, it clearly wasn’t fudging numbers with their performance claims. The SUV was genuinely engineered to survive speeds most owners will never experience. Still, “capable of” and “good idea” aren’t the same thing. Engineers validated that top speed in controlled conditions with trained drivers and closed roads. Public highways during one of the busiest travel weekends of the year are a very different environment.
