Dodge Demon to ride on barely legal drag rubber

The recently teased Dodge Challenger Demon was always going to be a tyre fryer and it’s going to have plenty more rubber to burn with barely street legal 315mm wide drag radials.

The Nitto NT05R tyres will be fitted to all four corners meaning the Demon will have the widest front tyres ever fitted to a production vehicle – 10mm more than previous record holders on the Camaro Z/28 which wore 305s front and back.

The huge Nittos are sized 315/40R18 with a broad sidewall complete with Demon logo. They’ll be fitted to 18 x 11-inch lightweight rims instead of the Challenger’s usual 20s.

Dodge reckons it will be the first production car to come with factory equipped drag radials, which will be about as slick as regulators will allow and probably won’t do you too many favours in the wet.

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Fitting this bulging rubber inside the body will require decent flares, which are expected to add almost 90mm to the Challenger’s already considerable girth.

Not too much else is known about the Demon which is poised to sit above the 527kW 6.2-litre V8 Hellcat variants in terms of performance, with parent company FCA carefully releasing information in 12 stages.

It released a teaser website with a countdown for a series of videos, the 12th and final of which comes out just ahead of the New York Auto Show on April 10.

The sneak-peak of the Demon’s tyres confirm previous hints that it will be all about straight-line quarter mile performance.

Sadly, while FCA is slated to bring the Dodge Challenger and Charger to Australia, pending production of a right-hand version, it’s highly unlikely the Demon will be part of the line-up.

Click here to find out how to read the numbers on the side of tyres.