‘68 Charger – The White Hellephant

PHASE I

Definition of a White Elephant: Something extravagant, impractical and expensive with no useful purpose. The White Hellephant is all that and much, much more!

At SEMA in 2018, the Hellephant was unleashed – a limited run of 100 aluminum supercharged 426 hemis sporting 1000 HP and 950 lb-ft of torque – on pump gas! I had to have one, jumped on the wait list and when they eventually got around to selling them, I was lucky enough to nab one! Not only that, a contact who knew I was looking hooked me up with another one, so I ended up with two of them, though I eventually sold one at a decent “Additional Dealer Markup”. Now then, what to put it in? First thoughts were a 71 ‘cuda, but then I saw it, an overhead shot of a ‘68 Charger highlighting those beautiful coke bottle curves. Decision taken, and I happened to have a friend who had one for sale

We started working on it but as it was an original numbers-matching R/T, decided it was best to restore that one to original and find a roller. I didn’t feel nearly as bad modifying an original 383 column-shift auto that was a roller, anyway, especially since some smart guy had installed a sun roof back in the day. Of course it was a lot of work, but the rust and crappy panels were cut out and replaced and all the goodies ordered for an RMS suspension, modified 6-speed Tremec, Vintage Air, Dakota Digital Gauges and all the bells and whistles.

Round 1 – metal work at a local shop. Quite a bit of work done, but things just weren’t progressing as desired so I decided to take the car to my own shop and work on it there.

Round 2 – started work, enlisted the part time help of a couple of friends who happened to be top notch fabricators/paint/body – things were moving along but as it was a part-time effort, not too rapidly. One of the guys took a job out of town so things ground to a halt.

Round 3 – back to the original shop, but I went in every day to work on the car while also putting my Boss back together. Got all the plumbing and wiring laid out, but it became more and more obvious that I was never going to get the car to the level I wanted it, and I was spending way more time with cars than home with my wife, which wasn’t sitting well.

Stage 4 – after my wife and I toured around checking out various “high end” shops, the car was moved to Horsepower Northwest in Bremerton – most places had long wait lists and/or were far away, but HPNW fit the bill by being close enough to be involved and the owner was crazy about the build ideas we came up with – plus they specialize in Mopars, so it was a perfect fit. Work during this phase of the build will be covered under the Phase 2 tab.

‘68 Charger – The White Hellephant

PHASE II

Definition of a White Elephant: Something extravagant, impractical and expensive with no useful purpose. The White Hellephant is all that and much, much more! This is where it really gets crazy.

Just a few of the “somewhat daffy to downright demented” things we’ve done, as both Aaron (the owner of HPNW) and I like to dream and he and his team turn our dreams into reality:

“Hellephant” aluminum supercharged 426 hemi, #63/100, upgraded with 108mm throttle body and higher flow/low profile blower lid.
Twin exhausts exiting through the tail lights, custom billet housings, LED’s and heatproofing
Hand-built headers and combination round/oval exhaust with Formula Z Performance 3-D printed Z-pipe, all finished with CeraKote Cobalt.
3D scanned front end with custom billet aluminum grille and Hellephant badging
Art Morrison IRS chassis
Bosch Motorsports M5 ABS system
15” Baer Extreme+ brakes with 6-piston monoblock calipers, Wilwood electric e-brake calipers, Bosch iBooster, under-dash hidden master cylinder, booster and brake/clutch booster reservoirs.
Custom billet sill plates
Custom billet coil pack covers
Twin Hardwire 28 Channel solid-state PDM’s married to Vais Technology ignition system, factory ECU and PCM via CAN bus, custom wiring harness for installation under rear seat.
Two trunk-mounted zero-gravity batteries with tender
Custom billet supercharger lid
Bespoke stainless gas tank with 3xDeatschwerks DW400 fuel pumps and Radium surge tank system
Full belly pan/roll pan
Soft close hood and trunk latches
Modified Tremec 6-speed transmission (Bowler Carbon T-56)
Flush mount front/rear bumpers
Custom front lower valence and air dam
Shaved drip rails and enhanced hood/door scallops and duck tail
Billet grills for hood scallops, design matching the grill
Big fat Michelin tires on Forgeline CF1 monoblock open lug wheels with custom center caps
Custom billet Hellephant gas cap
Custom billet mirrors