Dodge Challenger is the hot new muscle car
Wow a convertible in 2009!
Dodge Challenger is the hot new muscle car
Chris Vander Doelen
Windsor Star
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
CREDIT:
The 2006 Dodge Challenger Concept made its world debut at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Judging by the positive response from journalists and Joe Public alike, the Challenger stands a good chance of becoming a production car.
Chrysler LLC took more than 6,000 orders for the 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 it will start building in Brampton, Ont. in April, the company said Wednesday.
The company announced Monday they would start taking orders for the 425-horsepower, high-performance version of the coupe, and collected more than 4,500 deposits from customers on the first day.
Orders were still pouring in this afternoon as the company issued a press release saying it had already sold 6,000 of the cars. "This is unprecedented," said Mark Mallie, Challenger Brand Manager - Dodge Marketing.
"There's a lot of people anxious for it . . . Customers were actually coming to us and pushing us, so we thought this was a good time to take pre-sale orders."
More than half of the buyers specified they wanted the "Hemi Orange" paint job on their muscle cars. The SRT8 version of the coupes come only in black, silver or orange.
The $37,995 car is an almost line-for-line recreation of a muscle car Chrysler stopped building nearly 35 years ago.
The Challenger will be the fourth vehicle built on the LX platform underneath the extremely successful Chrysler 300, the Dodge Charger, and the recently-axed Dodge Magnum.
But for technical reasons the company is referring to the Challenger platform as the LY. A convertible version will follow in 2009.
Production at Brampton Assembly is scheduled to begin in the spring, with early summer deliveries of the 6.1-litre SRT8. Other models will have a 5.7-litre engine expected to produce 350-horsepower, and a 3.5-litre engine producing about 250 horsepower.
The Canadian sticker price for the cars havn't been set yet, and the company isn't taking Canadian orders for the SRT8 yet.
"We will have a different vehicle allocation process than the U.S.," said Stuart Schorr, senior manager of communications for Chrysler Canada Inc.
Chrysler Canada will announce Challenger pricing "closer to its spring launch date," he said. Until then, Canadian dealers are being encouraged to "work with" potential buyers of the car, who may want to "get their name on that dealer's list for Challengers," Schorr said.
The two-door sports coupe is expected to be a low-volume niche product for Dodge selling under 50,000 units per years, analysts say.
__________________
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.