Did Hulk Hogan Really Own An 850-HP 1968 Dodge Charger Restomod?

You know what they always say when a controversial celebrity passes. They left a “complicated legacy.” Terry Bollea, better known as wrestler Hulk Hogan, had as many admirers as detractors, and plenty of fans who fell squarely into both camps. We are leaving it to everyone else to negotiate the man’s place in pop culture history. We’re here to talk cars, and along with that “complicated legacy,” Hulk Hogan left behind a garage full of beautiful vehicles.

Dodge

Founded

December 14, 1900

Founder

John Francis Dodge & Horace Elgin Dodge

Headquarters

Auburn Hills, Michigan, U.S.A

Owned By

Stellantis North America

Current CEO

Carlos Tavares

Hogan had a fondness for American muscle, in particular, and Dodge most of all, owning a 1994 Dodge Viper RT/10, a 2021 Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye, a 2018 Challenger SRT Demon, and what we consider to be the crown jewel of the collection, an engine-swapped 1968 Dodge Charger R/T. Like the man himself, this Charger R/T is one of a kind, a muscle-bound American icon. It’s also steeped in a fair bit of mythmaking. Here’s what you need to know about the Hulkster’s 1968 Charger.

The 1968 Dodge Charger R/T Is The Holy Grail Of Muscle Cars To Begin With

According to Hagerty, a 1968 Dodge Charger R/T in good condition should sell for an average price of around $96,000. It’s not hard to find R/Ts going for considerably more than that, though. A quick search on Bring a Trailer turns up plenty of R/T auctions closing at $130,000 and up.

Dodge produced 92,590 Chargers for 1968, with 17,665 of them being the performance-oriented R/T, and just 475 of those were Hemis. That might not sound like the rarest car in the world, but keep two points in mind. First, this was over fifty years ago. Second, R/T buyers weren’t exactly Sunday drivers, only taking this car to church and back. Surviving R/Ts in good condition are hard to find, especially with their original parts, and their pricing reflects that.

Of course, none of that would matter if the Charger R/T wasn’t also one of the greatest muscle cars ever made. With its original engine and transmission, here’s what you could expect from a fresh-off-the-factory-floor 1968 Charger R/T.

Of course, Hulk Hogan’s 1968 Dodge Charger R/T is anything but stock. In a video posted to the YouTube channel Wrestling Thoughts, the Hulkster shows off a handful of modifications, including:

• Power windows
• A new HVAC system
• A power switch for the car battery
• Custom steel fuel lines
• A massive crate engine

These features add modern convenience and a certain extra bit of coolness to the car, but the biggest upgrade is, of course, the engine swap, a 528 cubic-inch (8.7-liter) Hemi V8.

The 528 Hemi Starts You Off At 600 HP

Dropping a 640-horse engine into your Charger is the automotive equivalent of sayin’ your prayers and takin’ your vitamins, giving the R/T the competitive edge it needs to bodyslam The Iron Sheik and Andre the Giant. This engine is a monster right out of the box, brother.

With these specs, you could easily spend $20,000 just to buy the engine, and that’s not counting shipping and installation. We’ve seen 640-hp variants going for $30,000, and the Hemi only gets more expensive from there. At a bare minimum, buying a 1968 Charger R/T and dropping a 528 into it is going to cost you more than $100,000.

Does Hogan’s Dodge Charger R/T Produce 850 Horsepower?

Showing his R/T off, Hulk Hogan claims that the customized Charger can do “around 850 horsepower.” You can accomplish a lot with tuning and with turbo and superchargers, but 640-650 hp seems to be the upper limit for what you’re going to get out of a naturally aspirated 528 out of the box, which leaves us asking: where did that extra 200 hp come from?

Here’s the thing about Hulk Hogan. When it comes to numbers, he’s not above some generous “rounding up.” In his autobiography, Hogan states that: “If I say I wrestled four hundred days a year, it’s no exaggeration. My years were actually longer than 365 days.” The reasoning was that, because he was spending so much time flying back and forth from Japan to America for wrestling engagements, the additional time from crossing time zones added up to around 400 days in a year, according to him.

Say what you want to say about the Hulkster, but this kind of tall-tale mythmaking is part of the magic of professional wrestling. However, it does call into question the veracity of his claimed 850-hp Charger. Ultimately, the question comes down to whether you could bring a naturally aspirated 528-cubic-inch engine up to 850 hp without the powerplant blowing up into smithereens.

It’s Possible To Get 800+ HP Out Of A 528 Hemi, But We’re Not Sure If Hogan Did

Hot Rod Magazine published a piece back in 2017 showcasing a 528 Street Hemi crate engine upgraded to 825 hp. The project started with a more modest aim of around 750 horses, but the builders shot right past that goal with a long list of modifications, including upgraded carbs, cylinder heads, lifters, and pushrods.

Wrestling Thoughts posted the video of Hogan showing off his “850-hp” 528 a few years after Hot Rod Magazine cracked 800 hp. If we want to be generous, we can say that Hogan simply rounded up to 850 from 825, but that 825-hp Hemi wasn’t right out of the box. It wasn’t something that just any tuner could pull off. It was the result of months of experimentation, drawing on years of experience and insight into the inner workings of Mopar engines.

For Hogan to have cleared Hot Rod Magazine’s 825-hp supercar-tier benchmark by an additional 25 horses, that alone would likely have been a bigger story. The Hulkster would have had a long line of gearheads, hot-rodders, and tuners lining up at his door to ask him how he managed it.

We’re not saying there’s no way his Charger R/T cranked out 850 hp, all we’re suggesting is that there are reasons to be dubious about the figure. Like many of Hogan’s tall tales, this one sits right on the borderline of plausibility. It’s not impossible that he owned a one-of-a-kind record-setting 528 Hemi, but it seems unlikely. That’s the magic of a Hulk Hogan story: you can’t prove he’s making it up.

We’re not trying to call the man out, here. How many of us have spun a line of bull about our own project cars? Anyway, if you ask us, a 640-hp car cranking out 850 hp is the perfect ride for a man who used to wrestle 400 days a year. Here’s to a larger-than-life legend. There’ll never be another Hulk Hogan.

Sources: Hot Rod Magazine, Wrestling Thoughts, Dodge.