Alfio Capicollo 
If you’re a fan of cars, or just American muscle cars in particular, you’ve no doubt seen the iconic Hellcat logo. It’s hard to miss, with its muscular cat stretching out across a bright-red background. But what is the story behind this powerful logo? Join us as we take a closer look at the history and meaning behind the Hellcat emblem. Oh, and if you’re wondering what it’s like to drive a car with that angry feline on the hood, we’ll tell you that too! Stay tuned for all things Hellcat.
The Dodge Hellcat engine was first introduced in 2014 and strangely, at the time, received its own brand identity. The Hellcat logo features a line drawing depicting a wild cat running very fast. Its open mouth exposes vicious canine and incisor teeth matched by evil slanting eyes.
When the Dodge Charger Hellcat was launched, the engine was the most powerful massed produced production series engine. It created a new market segment that has attracted a high-volume market of petrolheads who can challenge the raw power of cars priced two to three times higher.
What Is The Dodge Hellcat Logo?
Dodge first launched the engine in 2014; every vehicle in which it was installed had the logo attached.
The Hellcat logo has remained unchanged since its original launch.
The name Hellcat was given to the new Dodge engine, partially in remembrance of the notable achievements its namesakes made in the second world war and to recreate the memory of the 1960s muscle cars.
The Hellcat logo is a stylized image of a snarling wild cat moving from left to right with the graphic effect of high speed.
The logo’s impression is of a wild feline predator drawn with a gently rounded head broken by a viciously snarling (sharp-cornered) mouth with exposed canine and incisor teeth matched with evil slanting eyes.
The Hellcat logo is a line drawing with sharp corners and lines that emphasize the animal’s aggressiveness and speed.
The letters “SRT” on the left-hand side of the logo are in italics to reinforce the impression of speed.
Artistically, the Hellcat logo is very simple, making it more effective in conjuring up the impression of the sheer aggression and speed it is intended to evoke.
The cat hisses menacingly, showing sharp fangs, squinting eyes, and ears pressed tightly back on the animal’s head, anticipating pouncing and attacking its prey.
Apart from the lettering, there are no straight lines in the logo.
Instead, features are joined with gentle curves (perhaps showing a softer side to the vehicle as well). The curves are broken very aggressively by the sharp angles at the edge of the mouth, nose, chin, teeth, and ears.
What Animal Does The Hellcat Logo Represent?
The Hellcat logo design epitomizes the words speed, aggressiveness, power, and strength.
This geometry of the image portrays high-speed movement, which is reinforced by the open contour in the neck area, and the left to right italic lean of the letters.
The sharp angles portray a strong impression of active aggression. The animal is not waiting to pounce; instead, the logo gives a clear impression that the animal is on the move and is in the process of pouncing.
The feline the Hellcat logo is intended to portray has never been officially acknowledged, but it appears to be a combination of:
- Cheetah for the speed.
- Tiger for the aggressiveness.
- Jaguar hunts during the day and night.
- A puma with its long back legs.
What Are The Colours Of The Dodge Hellcat Logo?
The Dodge Hellcat Logo is produced in two variants, namely.
- A single color line drawing.
- The line drawing but with the eye painted red.
- The logo fitted to cars is often made of grey lines on a black background.
On paper and in adverts, the logo is drawn in black on white background, and depending on its use, the eye is left white, and in others, it is red. The Hellcat Redeye logo has a red colored eye which represents that the car is a Hellcat Redeye, which provides even further performance over a standard Hellcat.
Let’s take for example the Dodge Challenger Hellcat, you get a monstrous 717hp and 656 lb-ft of torque out of a 6.2L V8 Hellcat motor which for most people would be more than enough power. But if you’re looking for even more, you can opt for the Dodge Challenger Hellcat Redeye, this will boost you up to 797hp and 707 lb-ft of torque from the same Hellcat engine producing 14 psi of boost with the larger 2.7L supercharger compared to the standard Hellcat with its 2.4L supercharger producing 11 psi.
Is The Hellcat Logo Available For Purchase?
When a brand extends beyond the product itself and extends into being a part of the common culture, it takes on a life and value of its own.
While a manufacturer will often develop merchandising related to a specific model range, it is rare when third-party companies start to produce products and accessories for sale beyond the manufacturer’s outlets.
Since its launch in 2014, the Hellcat logo has become a value brand beyond the motor industry.
In all its forms, the logo can now be purchased as follows.
- Replacement emblem on the car
- Large graphic patterns can be stuck on the car.
- Lights on the bottom of the doors shine an image of the logo on the ground.
- Embossed images are sewn into the front seats.
- Even YouTube videos provide detailed instructions on drawing the Hellcat logo found here.
The History Of The Dodge Hellcat
From 1943 to 1945, the Grumman F6F Hellcat distinguished itself as the most successful single-engine fighter in the Pacific theatre, which won control of the airspace by outmaneuvering and outgunning the Japanese A6M Zero.
In addition, in 1943, the United States took delivery of the M18 Hellcat tank, which could dominate the battlefield and had a higher kill to loss ratio than any other tank or tank destroyer fielded by U.S. forces in World War II.
Of the 2,507 built, only seven Hellcats were destroyed or disabled.
When Dodge developed the Hellcat Engine, they achieved the same dominance in the motor industry.
First launched in 2014, the Hellcat was the first serial production engine developed 707HP in factory specification.
The newest 2022 Hellcat Redeye model features a modified, more powerful, Hellcat engine, which has the horsepower bumped up by 12.7% to the ludicrous power figure of 797 horses.
The new engine version has 707 pound-feet of torque, and this car will accelerate from 0 – 60 mph in 3.5 seconds and then continue to a top speed of 203 mph (326 km/h).
The Dodge Hellcat Redeye will cover a distance of a quarter of a mile in 11.5 seconds, and by the end of the quarter-mile, the car will be doing 126 mph (202 km/h).
Dodge has levered the Hellcat engine into virtually any chassis that it will fit into, and over the years, these have included.
- Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat.
- Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat.
- Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk.
- Ram 1500 Rebel TRX Concept.
- Ram 1500 TRX.
- Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat.
In addition, Dodge offers the Hellcat as a standalone crate engine.
Dodge Demon vs Hellcat Logo
The Demon branding on a Dodge Challenger opens you up to a whole new world of performance. If they Hellcat Redeye wasn’t enough with it’s 797hp the Demon produces a mind bending 808hp on standard octane fuel or 840hp if you fill it up with 100+ octane. Dodge have thrown everything they can at the Demon to get every last bit of performance out of it. This propels the demonic car to the end of the 1/4 mile in just 9.65 seconds.
Now, the Demon vs Hellcat logo has some clear differences too since it’s a completely different beast. With the demon we’ve now upgraded from the savage Hellcat onto an actual demon. The demon logo is a lot more aggressive looking in nature and intimidating as per the actual car itself. You can see in the picture above the design language emphasises that this is the next level up and it achieves it easily. Even the ordinary non-car person can identify that this is something special, even more so than ‘just’ a Hellcat logo.
Conclusion
The Dodge Hellcat logo represented success and has achieved an almost cult-like following from motor car enthusiasts. The engine has made power levels accessible, which previously were reserved for super or modified cars costing multiples higher.
The SRT Hellcat logo is drawn in a brilliantly simple style, and yet it invokes the impression of sheer aggression and speed. From the menacingly hissing and sharp fangs to the squinting eyes and ears pressed tightly back on the animal’s head, demonstrate the Dodge Challengers (in its various guises) potential for ludicrous high-speed acceleration, which will humble cars costing two to three times the price.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below are a list of a few frequently asked questions and our answers to them:
What animal is the Hellcat Logo
The Hellcat logo has never been officially identified as any particular animal, although it is safe to assume it is a feline and it represents a few different larger cats for a number of reasons. First the Cheetah for it’s obvious speed, a Tiger for it’s aggressiveness, a Jaguar to hunt it’s prey regardless of it being day or night and a Puma with it’s long back legs.
Who designed the Hellcat logo?
Under the direction of Dodge CEO, Tim Kuniskis, the team over at Stellantis were engaged to design the Hellcat logo, the Stellantis team contains many different specialty design teams and the one responsible for the Hellcat logo design is the Badging and Identify team. They’ve also designed other iconic logo’s such as the Demon logo, designed by Kevin Carter.
