Sophisticatedly Brutal: Hellcat Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow

We love when shops take two completely opposing approaches to automotive performance and mash them up to make a weird hybrid. While obviously not for everyone, these Frankenstein creatures push boundaries and help redefine what’s possible. And that’s why we think this 900-horsepower 1978 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow with a Hellcat engine is perfect.

A go-kart with a Hayabusa engine is a wonderful thing.

Lovingly called Slay Poupon as a tribute to those iconic 80s commercials, this zany build was put together by none other than Hoonigan. We’ve included two videos, one explaining the build in greater detail and another showing just how efficiently it can roast tires.

At the heart of Slay Poupon is a Hellcrate engine, which as you know comes with north of 700-hp. Instead of keeping the 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi V8 stock, the team swapped out the factory supercharger for a Magnuson blower, boosting peak output to about 900-hp.

If you have to ask why they added more power to an already powerful engine, well you probably already think this build is dumb, unnecessary, and a waste of money.

The expense of this build went so much further. The chassis is custom, because there’s no way the Rolls-Royce OE frame could handle that kind of power. The Hoonigan team had to design the engine mounts, power steering, coolant overflow, brake fluid reservoir, and many other components from scratch so everything would fit – in other words, this was a painstaking build and so is why we might not see another like it for some time.

There are three radiators to keep that hot Hemi running at optimal temperature. To feed that, then the team took off the ugly, protruding bumpers they integrated functional air scoops into the new front bumper, adding grilles to make it look classy.

Speaking of painstaking and custom, the gold Rotiform wheels are one-of-a-kind and sized specifically for the car. And they look fantastic.  

While that’s interesting, the truly fun part is seeing a vehicle which is supposed to be dapper, proper, and British roasting its rear tires like a raucous American muscle car. The parking brake in it is a rally-style one with a long handle. If the driver pushes it forward, the front brakes lock up. If the driver pulls it back, the rear brakes lock. That makes spinning the big British sedan around and smoking rubber so much easier.

Now check out Slay Poupon in action and see all the little details explained.

Images via Hoonigan/YouTube