[Xylander]

The truth on this topic is there's 2 major kinds of car people. People who respect the cars, and people who want respect because of the car. They like and enjoy their cars, or they desperately want people to see them driving that car. To really hammer on this, it's the difference between someone who is primarily given some joy or fulfillment by owning, maintaining, and driving their car. It's an internal thing. These other folks want the car for a prop. It's about them, not the car. We're basically talking pride vs. vanity.

In the real world, 90% of drivers have no clue what a Hellcat is. Of the remainder, maybe 8% knows what a HC is by name, but they don't KNOW what a Hellcat is. Drive thru window employee, "IS THAT A HELLCAT?!" Is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The other 2% knows that a car like this is a BS fake. These attention seekers want the fake Hellcat because they're of the group that knows what a HC is, and what people like them think how cool it must be to own one. So, in an effort to be cool, they spawn a fauxcat. The people who take personal pride in their vehicle tend to respect it for what it is. They don't turn Scat Packs into HC fakes. The opinion of a 16 yr old teenager walking down the sidewalk doesn't matter. It matters a lot to someone who does make a fake HC. For them, a wet dream scenario would be to drive past 4 women at the beach and one of them says, "NICE HELLCAT! TAKE ME FOR A RIDE!"

These cars have "Panty Dropper Mode" start button covers. Their car's entire purpose is to attract attention to try and make that dream a reality, and they're usually driven by younger people in their 20s. Vanity tends to peter out the older they get. Unless they're a narcissist.

I think that's pretty much the answer.

 

[Xylander]

Spot on!

Don't forget those that are just smart asses and also do it just to be funny or poke fun. I have a few friends like this but typically most know they are just being a retard, like for instance the Avenger car with the Hellcat emblem. Most likely this is just a character trying to poke fun and be funny.

Yeah, there's a guy here in town with an SXT badged up with HC badges. It has a muffler and resonator delete. He's one of those 19-21yr old street drifter wannabes that has moderate body damage on all 4 corners of the car. He does it to intentionally annoy people. I've met him at C&C a couple times. It's offensively loud and sounds horrible. However, he still falls into the "my car is a prop" group, as he's doing it for attention. Overwhelming negative attention is still a lot of attention. When you talk to him, he comes across as one of those guys who's just taking the piss all nonchalant like. "Yeah, this car is stupid, everybody in town knows this car." That attitude is learned behavior though because he went a long way to try and make it a semi-believable fake. HC hood, SRT performance spoiler, the big HC billboard stickers, HC front fascia. Of course he doesn't have the Brembo brakes and he left the fog lights in the lower fascia, which are dead giveaways. When the car fires up, there's no denying that it's a V6 though. He used to try telling people it was a Super Stock due to the small brakes on the front, but folks started calling him out... hence the current flippant attitude about owning a joke car. That thing started out as a serious attempt at passing off a clone, but he started getting called out a lot.

What I see a lot of down here in Tallahassee are actual Hellcats that are trying to be Redeyes. I went to C&C this past weekend and there were 4 HCs including mine. 1 "normal" Hellcat, and 2 other Redeyes. Both of those Redeyes were fakes. Before I got my Redeye, I never really paid attention under the hood as to the differences between the two when the hood is open. Both of those fake Redeyes had green belts and Redeye supercharger emblems. However, neither of them had the driver's side plumbing for the chiller. I ran their VINs for fun and both of them were 2015 and 2016 Hellcats that had done hood swaps and upbadge jobs. Both owners were representing their cars as Redeyes. One of them came over to my car and said, "That's my Redeye over there, how are you liking yours?" I told him that I was really enjoying mine, but asked him where his Redeye was because that one was a 2015 Hellcat. "You're a funny guy..." and he walked off.

I get honest fun. Cars like that Prius with the HC engine in it or overtly stupid upbadge jobs like 98 Ram trucks running around with TRX badges (it's a thing). Sadly, those folks are a minority, as most of the fakes I see are attempts at misleading people. The intent of the build matters. I've got no issue with people who want to build something silly for fun... it's their money, do whatever. But, when a car is built to try and mislead people by an owner who's serious about trying to pass it off as the real deal... that's not cool.

 

[Xylander]

I’ll prolly get banned for saying this bcuz everybody so butt hurt here.. but oh well.. a lot of you ppl need to get a real life , who cares if a dude with a rt or less out a cat in there car ?? Lol seriously who cares?? Maybe you bcuz all you have is a hellcat but I sure don’t care .. and I own multiple. To each is own . If that’s what they wanna do so be it . You don’t Gota sit here and write 9 run on paragraphs shaming sumbody about what they want to do with their life/car. A lot of you people are jokes in here 💯

If they want to make a fake and try and lie to my face by saying their car is a real HC, then that just shows lack of integrity and a flawed character. I for one "care" because douchebags who try and pass off fakes at car meets and car shows are just patently dishonest people... and I don't generally waste time with people like that. Younger folks think it's no big deal, but left alone, they grow into older people who bring '70 Chevelle SS 396 cars to vintage car shows that are actually VIN'd for 6 cylinder or lower common CID V8s. It's people like them that requires people like me to be hired to evaluate classic cars up for sale because the fakes often outnumber the originals. For example, '69-'70 Boss 302 Mustangs. I've seen maybe 100 or more in my lifetime... only 2 have been real. You see this a lot with Mopars on Super Bees in particular. At least half of all Super Bees up for sale are just Coronets that somebody's painstakingly upbadged and modified to try and look like a real Super Bee. These blatant fakes are called tribute cars once they're found out... but you'll note at car shows, their display boards say nothing about it being a tribute car in most cases.

The moral of the story is that young people trying to pass fakes today become old people who own fake classics tomorrow. That whole, "I can do whatever I want" mentality is all well and good, but it often ends up in the attempt to fraudulently sell a tribute car to an even dumber buyer. These types of people lack integrity and they end up doing harm to the entire market as a result.

For example, I take my very real factory original '67 GT500KR out to a major show 1-2 times per year. I'm always the only real Shelby. There might be a few tribute cars there, but mine is the real deal. All day long, I usually get met with a handshake and something like, "This is the best tribute I've ever seen," because the Shelby tribute thing is massively overdone. When I say that it's not a tribute, then I have to spend the next 20 minutes trying to prove it because nobody believes it. It's literally that bad. I also own a '70 429 SCJ Torino that's equally ridiculed for being a fake. That's because Ford made a lot of "Thunder Jet" 429s, and almost all of them have been upbadged to SCJ clones over the years. In fact, I have never seen a VIN'd Thunder Jet car in original format in person. They always have the CJ badges, shaker hood. Always. People naturally assume that it's a tribute car because 99% of the SCJs you see are in fact N code Thunder Jets that have been modified to look like J code SCJs. Mine is a numbers matching J code car, so it's pretty easy to prove.

 

[Xylander]

Nope. It's always parked at a supermarket near me in Tampa. They obviously work there.

They always put young people to work in produce due to the amount of box kicking involved. That car looks like a broccoli stocker special.

 

[Xylander]

A third type: people who defile cars while ridiculing "purists."
View attachment 615303
I'm not suggesting whoever did this to an actual Ferrari 288 GTO should be shot.

I'm just not thinking I would have any artificial tears glued to my cheeks if it happened.

On the whole "defilement" topic, just wait until the copyright on Mickey Mouse runs out pretty soon. You want to see defilement taken to a whole new nadir? I have already seen some of the aggressively-marketed products with Mickey Mouse giving the finger, etc.

At least they picked the right Ferrari to do that to. 288 owners are already ridiculed by "proper" Ferrari owners. Kinda like how 911 and 718 owners poke at Boxter owners.

 

[Xylander]

That’s terrible. Fake Red Eyes. How old were these guys? But that’s a great point no chiller. I don’t even know where mine is or what it looks like. Can you post a pic. Brilliant come back.

Basically, a Redeye is going to have extra A/C coolant lines on the driver's side of the engine bay. This hardened line looks similar to the ones that run on the passenger's side of the engine bay beside the IC coolant tank. On the Redeye, these lines carry the air conditioned air to the chiller behind the front bumper. Just beside the oil cap mounted on top of the line is a visible actuator that when active, diverts airflow to the chiller.

Redeye. Note the chrome-like lines on the right side of the image just beside the coil pack cover beside the oil fill cap and the location of the black PCV pump. The actuator is the part with the "Fujikoki" label:

Hellcats don't have this portion of tubing, nor the actuator:

I'm sure there's quite a few other noteworthy ways to tell a Redeye apart from a Hellcat. You can't always go with the green Gates belt, as many people swap those to the green belts when they change the pulleys. Of course the Redeye's blower is bigger, but if you're not deeply familiar with either engine bay, it's easy to overlook.