2018 Dodge Demon Easter Egg Teaser Probably Isn't About All-Wheel Drive

Dodge dropped another Demon teaser today and many are theorizing that the license plate shown in the video might confirm all-wheel drive for the new high-performance car. The speculation is being fueled by confirmation that the Demon will wear the same size tire on all four corners, as well as a license plate displayed at the end of today’s teaser video.

The plate shows “ which Car and Driver speculates to mean the Demon will produce 2,576 lb-ft of torque at 3,500 rpm at each driven wheel. While that’s a fair assumption, I believe the plate tells us something entirely different.

The Demon is set to top the Hellcat, which features a 6.2-liter V8 aided by an IHI supercharger with 2,380cc of displacement. This supercharger is of a twin-screw design, meaning it uses a pair of intermeshing rotors to compress the air forced into the engine. This type of supercharger comes in various displacements, but my speculation is the “2576” portion of our hint translates to a bored-out version of the Hellcat supercharger, which will displace 2576cc on the Demon.

The “35” portion of the hint might also relate to the design of the supercharger. In a twin-screw supercharger, such as the one found on the Hellcat, the mesh of the rotors is created by a male rotor, which has lobes, and a female rotor, which has valleys. In a typical screw compressor, there are three lobes on the male rotor and five valleys on the female rotor. This configuration is called a “3-5 rotor combination,” which could translate to the “35” we see on the end of that plate. The whole combination of the hint would thus end up translating to a 2576cc supercharger with a 3-5 rotor combination.

There are many arguments against an all-wheel-drove confirmation, such as the teaser that was released last week — it doesn’t show any type of differential or axles on the front of the car. The Demon is also set to weigh about 200 pounds less than the Hellcat, which does not help the all-wheel-drive argument.

One example we can use for comparison that is somewhat close is the 2014 Dodge Charger R/T. In rear-wheel-drive configuration, the R/T weighed in at 4,253 pounds. All-wheel drive added nearly 200 pounds to the overall weight, for a total of 4,450 pounds. If the Demon is to use a similar arrangement, one would expect the Demon to gain about 200 pounds’ worth of AWD equipment, meaning it would have to lose a total of 400 pounds over the Hellcat to meet Dodge’s confirmed weight loss claim. While a 400 pounds loss is possible, I believe it’s unlikely to happen, meaning the Demon will probably be released as a RWD model.

Sorry folks.