The Dodge Challenger Hellcat may be the cool kid at the dragstrip right now, but the A/T Untamed Concept could be the king of the dunes soon.
The brainchild of designer Joey Ruiter, the Untamed Concept pulls from two extremes of American motorsport: high-powered muscle cars and off-roading. Using those points as anchors, he’s created something raw, exciting, and primally unbound.
As Ruiter says, “Why should a car be limited to the road it drives on?”
The Challenger A/T starts with a truck chassis and is modified with long-travel suspension arms, body armor, skid plates, rock sliders, and loads of dune buggy-esque flair. The Challenger body is bolted on top, and the result is pretty menacing. All you’ll need is some spikes, black leather, and a sawed-off shotgun and you’ve got a Mad Max film.
Related: Local Motors’ 3D-printed electric off-roader becomes reality
Powering the A/T is a tuned v6. This may be slightly disappointing to those who wanted to see the Hellcat’s earth-shattering supercharged V8 under the hood, but given the fact that this car drives on sand, it actually makes a lot of sense. Ruiter told Autoblog that he “wanted the passion given to the Hellcat to be pushed into more areas.”
Looking at the Untamed Concept, it’s hard not to think of the Rally Fighter, another off-roader wearing muscle car clothes. The Rally Fighter is made by Local Motors, and mates a Chevy Camaro body to a high travel tube chassis. The car was uniquely crowd-sourced, meaning that potential buyers could vote to see their favorite designs come to life.
Local Motors uses a distinct, refined production process that involves 3D printing, micro-manufacturing, and co-creation, but, like Ruiter’s concept, the result is uniquely elemental at heart.
Ruiter also makes designer furniture, which you can see on his website. It may not get a motorhead’s blood boiling like a big V8, but hey, it’s nice furniture.
(Photos via J.Ruiter)
