This has been the year of the Hellcat, and Dodge has soaked up a lot of positive press for their 707 horsepower rendition of the Challenger and Charger. Many people have been eyeing the 6.2-liter Hemi powerplant for projects of their own, hoping Fiat-Chrysler will begin selling crate engines to the public. With all the Hellcat motors already earmarked for production cars, the only way to get one is to gut an existing vehicle.

That’s exactly what two off-road shops 1,500 miles apart are doing, reports Engine Swap Depot. Dakota Customs in Rapid City, South Dakota and River Raider Off-Road in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania have both bought Dodge Hellcats with the sole purpose of acquiring the 707 horsepower Hemi V8 to swap into Jeep Wranglers. Is this off-road overkill, or the ultimate unstoppable force?

While FCA is almost definitely going to launch a crate engine program for the Hellcat V8s, Dakota Customs and River Raider Off-Road had to go the route of buying full-fledged Hellcats to get the motors for their Wrangler projects. Because of this, the conversions have a price of about $105,000, of which at least $60,000 is the cost of the Hellcat itself. Once FCA does begin a crate engine program, the engines will return home, but with SEMA 2015 just around the corner, there’s no time to wait.

So what are the benefits of dropping a Hellcat V8 into a Jeep Wrangler? Besides the obvious notoriety, there’s a ton of torque to play with that will make scaling any trail a piece of cake. Whether or not other Hellcat components make their way onto the Wrangler, we’ll have to wait and see, but this beastly project could be just as capable at the drag strip as in the mod bogs. At $105,000, that capability won’t come cheap, but once the crate engine program is in place, the price should fall from its low Earth orbit.