What do you picture when you hear the word “restomod”? If you’re anything like me, you probably envision a 1960s muscle car with a modern fuel-injected engine, aftermarket wheels wrapped in low-profile tires, and four-wheel disc brakes with slotted and cross-drilled rotors. But what does “retromod” bring to mind? I had never heard the term until recently. Rick Katzeff, the founder of Exomod, showed me exactly what it means with his company’s creation known as “Rapper’s Delight.”
Instead of fitting new parts to a vintage car, Exomod starts with a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat or Hellcat Redeye, strips away the exterior, and replaces it with a carbon fiber shell styled after the 1968 Charger (C68 Carbon), 1969 Charger (C69 Carbon), or the 1969 Charger Daytona (D69 Daytona).
Each one of those models usually takes approximately 1,600 hours to construct, but to create Rapper’s Delight, inspired by the clear-coated carbon fiber Katzeff had seen on modern Hispano Suiza and Pagani models, Exomod put in weeks of overtime. It elongated the front end by four inches and extended the rear by six to make the body’s proportions look right over the Challenger Hellcat’s bones. After 2,000 hours of design, planning, and craftsmanship and 17 layers of Transparent Kandy Apple Red Carbon, the company produced its first transparent carbon fiber Charger.
A set of brass-colored Forgeline VX3C wheels, Pagan Gold Kandy Bumblebee rear stripes, and Pagan Gold Kandy accents add contrast while drawing even more attention to the exotic body. It’s too bad I wasn’t able to see Rapper’s Delight out in the open because its dynamic finish “just explodes” in the sunlight, according to Katzeff.
That fundamental switch from metal to carbon fiber shaves about 10 percent off a Challenger SRT Hellcat’s weight and lowers the quarter mile time by half a second, according to Katzeff. Interior changes are less extensive, but still substantial: upholsterer Katzkin recovered the seats in Doeskin and quilted Havana leather.
Exomod couples the body’s lighter weight with increased output. Katzeff said Rapper’s Delight is a “Hennessey-inspired Hellcat Redeye” that runs on 93-octane fuel. Thanks to Hennessey Performance’s upper and lower pulleys upgrade, full-length headers, sport catalytic converters, and tune, the supercharged 6.2-liter V8 under the hood blasts out over 1,000 horsepower. Hennessey also tuned the eight-speed automatic to handle that massive increase in power. However, the Nitto tires are not as robust. When asked by my colleague Luke Lamendola about Rapper’s Delight’s ability to hook up, Katzeff said, “There’s no such thing as traction.”
Given the names of the various builds in Exomod’s registry, such as Deja Blu, Chalkstorm, and Black Velvet, I assumed Rapper’s Delight had already been spoken for. To my surprise, at the time of my interview with Katzeff, it was still available and serving as a showcase of Exomod’s capabilities. Typically, Exomod creations (which include a low-mileage donor Challenger Hellcat sourced by Exomod) are priced from $329,000; giving them your Challenger to convert will cost at least $179,000. As it sits, Rapper’s Delight has a price tag of $400,000.
You may be asking, “What happens to the original Hellcat bodies?” I had the same question, doubtful they were usable after they’d been removed. Katzeff surprised me again. Once Exomod pries away the outer shell, it sells it to somebody who re-bodies wrecked Hellcats and sells them with rebuilt titles. So Exomod’s actually putting Challenger Hellcats back on the road while it takes the Mopar muscle car to an extreme it’s never been before.
Source: www.classiccars.com