The Texas Department of Public Safety’s North Texas Region has added a Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat to its fleet. It’s painted black, has a bull bar bolted to the nose and has emergency lights in the grille and across the top of the windshield. The region posted it on its regional Facebook page with a one-line caption about horsepower and public safety. The post didn’t say how DPS got the truck, what it cost, what model year it is or whether a trooper will ever run radar in it on I-35E.
That last question is the interesting one, because the hardware tells you a fair amount about the likely answer.
What’s under the hood
When Dodge launched the Durango Hellcat, its official press release listed a supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI V8 making 710 hp at 6,100 rpm and 645 lb-ft of torque. It quoted 0-60 mph in 3.5 seconds, an 11.5-second quarter mile, a 180-mph top speed and a 116-foot stop from 60 mph. Dodge’s 2021 spec page lists a 2.38-liter supercharger running up to 11.6 psi of boost.
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Compare that with the Durango that police departments actually buy. Stellantis’ law enforcement lineup offers the Durango Pursuit with either the 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 or the 5.7-liter HEMI. Dodge’s Pursuit spec sheet rates the 5.7 at 360 hp and lists equipment that matters more on a 12-hour shift than horsepower does: a heavy-duty 220-amp alternator, police-grade BR9 brakes and upgraded heavy-duty engine cooling.
The Hellcat has double the power but none of that duty-cycle engineering. Dodge has never sold a pursuit-rated Durango Hellcat, so it has never gone through the annual police vehicle evaluations that fleet buyers use to compare patrol vehicles.
The bull bar question
The push bumper is the part of this build I’d most like to ask DPS about. Police push bars on a Pursuit are designed around that vehicle’s crash structure and airbag sensor timing. The Hellcat has a different front fascia, and that fascia is doing serious cooling work. A supercharged V8 heats its intake air, and the Hellcat relies on the air coming through the front of the truck to cool it down again. Hang steel and light heads in front of those openings and you risk heat soak in Texas summer traffic, which is exactly where a patrol vehicle spends most of its time.
On a show truck that’s a small concern. On a pursuit vehicle it’s something you’d want an engineer to approve.
Running costs
A Hellcat burns more fuel than a Pursuit and needs premium, and it wears expensive parts. The big Brembo brakes, the high-performance tires and the supercharger are all costly to keep up. Any fleet manager has to weigh those costs against the work this one vehicle actually does. That’s why the community-event theory is more than a guess. A Hellcat with a light bar is a very effective recruiting booth.
DPS has done this before
In September 2022, DPS’s Southeast Texas Region showed off a 2020 Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye. That car had been taken from a driver who ran from troopers in Harris County, and DPS said it was tuned to 1,080 hp. Texas law makes that kind of reuse straightforward. Under Article 59.06 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, forfeited property can go to a law enforcement agency “to maintain, repair, use, and operate the property for official purposes.” Nothing DPS has published says the Durango was seized. Still, that history is why so many people assume the agency didn’t pay sticker price for it.
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Other agencies have put high-performance cars on real patrol duty with a stated purpose. In April 2026, the New York State Police put Mustang GT500s on the road and explained that they were meant to target aggressive driving and excessive speeding. DPS hasn’t explained anything comparable about the Durango, at least not yet.
What North Texas drivers should know
If a blacked-out Durango shows up in your mirror, don’t assume it’s an enthusiast playing cop. Texas Transportation Code 547.305 bars any vehicle other than a police vehicle from showing a red light visible from directly in front. If you see red and blue in the grille, treat it as real.
As for the “nobody outruns it” angle, the Hellcat’s 180-mph top speed matters less than people think. DPS already has aircraft and radios, and it caught that Challenger Redeye with an airplane. The more useful lesson is that someone fleeing in a performance car tends to lose it for good. Texas forfeiture law lets the state keep the car and put it to work.
Bottom line
Until DPS publishes a fleet assignment, this Durango is mainly a public relations vehicle that could probably do patrol work if it had to. It’s the right truck to park at a school career day. Whether it holds up on regular patrol in a Texas August is a question the agency still hasn’t answered.
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