A couple weeks ago, I seriously considered buying a 2008 Mustang "program car" at a Lincoln-Mercury dealership. They were advertising them for $12,995.

Having had three Thunderbirds that all began life as rental cars, I have nothing against buying "program cars." On a whim, I called late in the day when I finally got around to reading the paper and saw the ad. A sales guy told me they had three left (out of six) and one of them was white, which I would have wanted. It had 13,000 miles on it. Frankly, if the situation at work was better (there have been layoffs in my department), I would have bought the Mustang.

When there are prices like these are floating around for what's basically a comparable car (everything said and done, a V-6 Mustang is very similar to an SE Challenger), you've really got to wonder what Dodge and its dealers are thinking with the price of the Challenger.