ORIGINAL: Justinec101
I have a feeling there won't be a very big price difference between the manual and the automatic since the manual is taken from an $80,000 car. But between the removal of the standard leather seats and maybe some savings with the manual there's no reason the challenger should be more than the Charger R/T.
I was hearing they would be producing as many SEs as R/Ts so that sounds like mass produced to me. Anyway, add any package or option to the SE and it's no longer a low 20s car. It's a mid 20s car. Definitely a far cry from the high teens mustang can advertise. And no I'm not saying they're equal cars, but I'm still not sure how they're gonna market the V6.
Remember though that this transmission is also being used in the GT500 and a few other cars; therefore, the price tag of the Viper isn't really an accurate indicator of how much this transmission will cost them. Remember that the auto is a MB design and I believe they have to pay them royalties for using it although they are building it in Indiana.
I'm also concerned about this issue, it seems strange to me that they can price the SRT-8 so well against the GT500 but can't do the same with the V6. It is probably an issue that they cannot produce near the number that Ford can since it will not sell nearly as well as the Mustang. The other thing is the Mustang's V6 is a very old design which original variants are supposed to route back to the 1960s vs. the 3.5L routes back to the early 90s, so the 3.5L is a lot higher tech and probably more expensive to build. The only way around this that I can think of it is if Chrysler were to make a V6 out of the 5.7L Hemi since it is claimed to cost less to build than the V8s it replaced as well as the 4.7L. Since it has MDS and VCT, the fuel mileage would probably be better and the power would as well. This is what I think that they should do, but I know it isn't going to happen.