It’s How Fast in the Quarter Mile? Watch the Hellcat-Powered PriSRT8 In Action [Video]

[Video: American Racing Headers]

This 800 wheel horsepower Prius runs the quarter mile in under 10 seconds. Yes, this Prius.

If you all don’t remember, there’s a rather special Toyota Prius out there in the world. But this isn’t just any Prius – it’s the Prius from Hell. It’s a mad creation – something that you’d never believe someone actually built. Build it someone did, however. Specifically, American Racing Headers of Deer Park, New York took an SRT Hellcat engine and shoved it under the hood of a humble Prius. In doing that, they pretty much made the car one of the most politically incorrect machines on the planet. Yep, we love it. It was one of our favorite cars we covered at SEMA last year (check out the video below!).

Nick Filippedes, owner of American Racing Headers, created this monster from a humble Prius for one purpose: to drive in New York’s HOV lanes.

“This is something I’ve been wanting to do for quite awhile…I said, ‘You know what? I’m gonna take one of these cars and stuff a thousand horsepower motor in it, and I’m gonna drive it on the HOV lane.”

Taking it to the drag strip

That would be quite a sight, but so is this: earlier in May, Filippedes took the “PriSRT8”, as it’s officially known, to the drag strip. Mind you, this Prius has gone from around 110 horsepower to 800 horsepower at the wheels. All the politically correct, tree-hugging parts are gone. In their place, there’s that Hellcat engine, plus a 4.5 Whipple supercharger and a 6-speed Tremec transmission. So you’d expect it to lay down a fairly quick quarter mile.

As it turns out, “fairly quick” would be an understatement. In fact, this wolf in sheep’s clothing puts down a 9.38 second quarter mile at 147 miles per hour. That’s definitely a Prius we’d be proud to own. Especially if you can blast it up and down the HOV lanes with your “Clean Pass” sticker in the window.