First Drive of SMS 570X 700hp

During a broader conversation over two hours wondering racing legend, entrepreneur aftermarket and namesake Steve Saleen SMS What is the most important things you want to Autoblog readers know not only its new 700 hp 570X, but the text as a whole. Miss something, Mr. Saleen bowed his head to the side and said "we are not a tuning shop. SMS is an original equipment manufacturer."

"We're not a tuner. SMS is an Original Equipment Manufacturer." - Steve Saleen

Normally, when the head of a company that makes cars and modify existing goes something like this, nods politely and draw their own conclusions. But in the case of Steve Saleen, who err on the side of trust. On the one hand, he has been on for 25 years - actually a Saleen Mustang 1984 only sold for $ 80,000. Compare this price to other 1984 Mustang. Besides, he is the man behind the Saleen S7, a fully beast of a machine because it is one of the most dominant super-based racing ever.

But if you look at all the new SMS 570X, it is difficult not to see a Dodge Challenger to market, albeit heavily modified one. But keep looking and you realize that not only are most of the new body parts that are really well built. More importantly, they fit properly. SMS and real cars come with warranty (three year/36, 000 miles to 570, one year/12, 000 to 570X) and has thousands of hours in R & D behind them. But in reality it is only once the bell suddenly appeared 570X realize that this is no backyard tuner.

The Devil's in the Engine's Details :

Staring back at you from the 570X's engine bay is one of the best looking supercharged V8 mills in existence. Starting with Dodge's 5.7-liter Hemi, SMS bores and strokes it out to 6.4-liters (though SMS just informed us that they'll be going down to 6.2-liters by the time you read this). They don't start with the larger 6.1-liter in the Challenger SRT8 because it's already been bored/stroked to different dimensions. Plus, the 5.7-liter motor comes standard in the Challenger R/T, which is SMS's starting point. Now you can get a non-fettled motor hooked up to a supercharger and that will net you around 500 ponies. This car is called simply SMS 570.

Seeing as how the intake pipe connects to the manifold right above and between your knees, the dominant sound in the cabin is also baritone sax, albeit one plugged into a pair of Mesa/Boogie half stacks. We're sure other noises are taking place as you dip your right foot deep into the throttle's long travel, but you can't hear 'em. And that's just fine because you really ought to be concentrating on what's barreling towards you at a rapid rate. 725 pound-feet of torque is an insane amount of forward thrust to deal with, and 700 horsepower means that you won't be slowing down anytime soon.

The Other Details are Almost as Important :

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who are smitten with the looks of the new Dodge Challenger, and those who shrug their shoulders and say, "meh." Without tipping our hand too much as to which camp we belong, we will say that SMS did a bang up job on the 570X's exterior. The front splitter helps to not only lower the Challenger's overall stance, but looks less blobular. The real magic happens out back where a rear diffuser performs an optical illusion that greatly cuts the bulk of the Challenger's portly backside.

Not Your Gearhead Father's Muscle Car :

Let's get this part out of the way: the SMS 570X is hugely quick.

Ridiculously so. We'd just finished drifting around Irwindale with Tanner Foust and his 650-ish-hp stock car-motored Scion TC and the 570X still felt scary fast. The first time SMS design guru Phil Frank dropped the proverbial hammer (er, in this case, sledge hammer) we were pinned to our seat harder than any mega-roller coaster we've ever ridden. Just a stunning amount of power and velocity. But with that much power on tap, the results were predictable, while still impressive.

In the End, We Must Conclude :

We hope we surprise no one when we tell you that this particular SMS car is not a Porsche Cayman. But then again, the people in the market for more-than-potent muscle cars aren't cross shopping darty little Germans against American Iron. With this in mind, you realize that SMS might have just built the ultimate in modern muscle. You're rarely (if not never) going to lose at a stop light, the looks are stunning in that I'm-gonna-beat-you-to-death thug stance one expects from a proper muscle car and the price is much less than any other 700-horsepower car we can think of – about $85,000.