For Five Bucks More Than a Nissan Leaf, You Can Get a Hellephant Instead


Apparently, today is Hemi Day in our vast autoverse, though Twitter tells me it’s also Lesbian Visibility Day, while Wikipedia informs me that John Wilkes Booth was shot through the neck in a Virginia farmhouse on this day in 1865.
But yes, Hemi Day. April 26th … 4/26. Get it?
Appropriately, Fiat Chrysler waited for choose this calendar date to open pre-orders for its monstrous “Hellephant” 426 crate engine, a 1,000-horsepower, 950 lb-ft beast of an powerplant designed to turn your pre-1976 Mopar into an object of fear and testosterone-fueled lust. It now has a price tag.
Officially named the Mopar “Hellephant” 426 Supercharged Crate HEMI Engine, the retro-themed tribute mill can be had for $29,995, which happens to be just five dollars more than the pre-destination price of an electric Nissan Leaf S.
Oddly, just last night a friend was mulling the feasibility of shoehorning an 8.0-liter Magnum V10 into a Leaf out of spite for the green crowd.
Available starting today via the Mopar brand’s crate engine site, the engine pairs with a $2,265 plug-and-play kit containing: a powertrain control module (PCM), power distribution center, engine wiring harness, chassis harness, accelerator pedal, ground jumper, oxygen sensors, charge air temperature sensors, fuel pump control module, and CAN bus interface device.
The Hellephant sits atop of mountain of muscle in the Mopar catalogue. Beneath it resides the 707 hp, 6.2-liter Hellcrate motor, a recent option for enlivening tired old iron. With the new 426, the company borrowed valve covers from the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye and a valve train from the Demon, then mated the all-aluminum engine with an improved supercharger. Metric displacement is a bored-and-stroked 7.0 liters.
Of course, the expense in replacing that smog-strangled 318 doesn’t end there. You might want that front end accessory drive kit, exhaust manifold kit, rear sump oil pan kit, and oil filter adaptor. Maybe a Tremec transmission, too.
Should you choose to drop money on the Hellephant, just know that you can’t boast of those 1,000 horses without 93-octane gas.
[Image: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles]

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- Art_Vandelay I wish. Love the 70 series
- Pco65752756 Why is this not on the High Mile Cars List?
- SCE to AUX "But we can all go pound sand in North America, unfortunately"In reality, that would be about 1000 people who can go pound sand, which is why this isn't coming to North America.
- MaintenanceCosts You could probably make this thing satisfy US emissions standards, although it wouldn't right now, but there is no way on God's green earth you could make it satisfy US safety standards.
- MrIcky Haven't these been out for a while? Is the news just that Japan gets them now too?
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Alas, my yellow 1970 Duster is long gone.
Someone should put one in a Camaro (or better yet, a Pinto) just to piss off the Chrysler fans.