If you’re a Mopar drag racing fan, you know who Paul Rossi is and just how much of an impact he had on the sport in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Rossi colors are now flying on a modern Mopar Super Stocker that’s packing some serious Gen 3 HEMI horsepower. This amazing ride was unveiled at SEMA 2025, and it’s already turning a lot of heads.
Rossi’s original 1970 Challenger was famous for its massive wheelstands and its ability to turn on win lights in Super Stock competition. This new car was delivered to PMR Race Cars as a body-in-white so Tony Mandella could create the ultimate Super Stocker. The car has been heavily modified as much as the Super Stock rules will allow. It went on a major diet and received a custom four-link suspension.
Under the hood, you’ll find a Blackbird Performance-built bullet providing the muscle for this Mopar. Geoff Turk, owner of Blackbird Performance, explains what makes this engine special.
“This is a 2021 354 cubic-inch NHRA Drag Pak engine. It uses the same 3.0-liter Whipple supercharger that is class legal, with the specified ratio you can use to drive the supercharger. It’s a great combination that’s making well over 1,400 horsepower.”
Behind the engine, you’ll find a Coan Racing-built TH400 transmission and a bolt-together torque converter. All that horsepower is sent to a Ford 9-inch rearend and a massive set of Mickey Thompson slicks that are wrapped around WELD wheels. A Holley ECU handles engine management, while a Racepak data acquisition system tracks every parameter the engine produces.
The chassis was designed using CAD software to shed as much weight as possible. The modern Challenger is viewed as a heavy platform, so Turk challenged Mandella to remove as much weight from the car as possible while still retaining all the class-required steel and glass. Turk believes the car will cross the scales with the driver at 2,900 pounds before ballast is added to meet the minimum class weight of 3,150 pounds.
In this video, Tony Mandella dives deeper into the car’s build and outlines the performance goals once it’s ready to hit the track.
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