When you think of a “Hellcat swap,” what do you picture? Probably someone pulling the engine out of a car and replacing it with a V8 out of a Hellcat, right? Well, what if there was a far more complicated way to swap a car? What if you could just lay the body of another car atop a full Hellcat chassis, would that be better for you?
It’s better for Rich Rebuilds, apparently, who chopped the bodies off of a Charger Hellcat and a Chrysler Town and Country with the intent of wedding the two in unholy matrimony. You might think that sounds like an arduous, complicated process, but you’d be wrong. It’s actually way harder than that.
First, the body comes off the Hellcat with the judicious application of a Sawzall. The full bodyectomy caused shockingly few errors in the car’s computer, and with that it was ready to serve as the base for a Town and Country body. That body came off with the help of a plasma cutter, which will now be topping my Christmas list for next year.
Surprisingly, the minivan body is actually a reasonably close fit for the Hellcat chassis. The Town and Country’s wheelbase is only 1.2 inches longer than the sedan’s, and the Chrysler’s track width is actually wider than a non-widebody Charger. Everything fits shockingly well once it’s all laid out together, and while final interior layout will depend on the to-be-installed rollcage it’s entirely possible the minivan will end up with its original three-row layout intact.
These kinds of swaps are difficult, time-consuming, and require plenty of shop space, which is why it’s so convenient that we have YouTubers willing to do the hard parts for us. We just get to watch, which is the best part of the whole gig.
