Defiant Drive: Taking a Spin, Almost Literally, in Prestone’s 1036-HP, Hellcat-Powered ’72 AMC Javelin AMX

At the 2017 SEMA show, Mopar released the Hellcat engine into the wild, so to speak, announcing that it would sell crate ’cats to anyone with 15 grand and a skateboard large enough to strap it to. Also at SEMA, the Ringbrothers of Spring Green, Wisconsin, showed a car that could serve as the veritable model for Mopar’s new adopt-a-Hellcat program: a 1972 AMC Javelin AMX called “Defiant,” built for antifreeze giant Prestone. It’s powered by a Hellcat Hemi tuned by Wegner Motorsports to an utterly feral 1036 horsepower. The car looked amazing up on the stand, but we all know that cars like this always look (and sound) better on the street, so when we were offered a quick spin in the beast at Point Dume, in Malibu, California, we said, “Hell, yes.”

Based on a 1972 AMC Javelin AMX that is said to have been trolling the Rings’ hometown for decades, Defiant is described by its builders as “arguably the wildest custom vehicle ever crafted” by the Ringbrothers team. Not only does it host a Hellcat with four-figure output under its carbon-fiber power-dome-on-a-power-dome hood, but the Ringbrothers have gone to extraordinary lengths to perfect the Javelin’s styling and stance.
Beneath the skin is a mechanical melange of muscle-car machinery, including a front subframe originally designed for a Chevrolet Camaro by Detroit Speed, which also provided the rack-and-pinion steering. RideTech shocks, sway bars, and side exhausts were also installed, as was a completely custom four-link rear suspension by Ringbrothers. A Chevy 4L80E automatic transmission and a carbon-fiber driveshaft were tasked with delivering the wrath of the goosed Hellcat motor to the 12-bolt rear end (also Chevy sourced), where a pair of 335/30R-20 Michelin tires are pretty much doomed to short lives.


We arrived about an hour before sunset, when the sky set the Jalop Gold paint aglow. It’s quite the color, and thankfully there’s enough matte black on the roof and hood to keep it from being overwhelming. Stepping up for closer inspection revealed details one might not notice from afar, such as a notch in the leading edge of the carbon-fiber hood, the sexy door pulls, the beefy hood anchor pins, anything and everything in the engine bay, and those exquisite taillamps! This car really is spectacular. Then there’s the rumbling idle, which gives way to a riotous wail on acceleration that you can feel as it passes by as if it were a stampede of 1036 actual horses. For our drive, we were allotted a 12-mile maximum. Alas, 12 feet was sufficient to scare us sideways (literally) after we depressed the gas pedal perhaps a fraction of an inch too far on entering the busy Pacific Coast Highway. The spectacularly loud but heavenly exhaust note did nothing to calm our nerves as we tried to make friends with this steroidal beast before a twitch or a sneeze might send us spinning. Even at highway speeds, the rear end would hop around without much provocation—with the feather-light gas pedal not helping matters, particularly for unfamiliar drivers. The fearsome jumpiness resembled one’s first experience of a Dodge Viper in the rain, only this car is much heavier and nearly twice as powerful. In the event something goes awry, the only protection is a 1972-period-correct lap belt.