RoswellGrey

Well, the 5,500 number sounds right for a limited-production edition if -- as has been rumored -- the '08 model run only lasts from late March/early April till July. Switching to '09 production in July would be about right for delivery to dealers by late September/early October.

my challenger

I went thru this process in 06-07 when i ordered my 07 GT500 shelby..total 07 run was about 9k cars,that worked out to be about 2 per dealer,Ford made at least one available to any dealer,but some received 3-4,while other dealer bought cars from smaller volume ford dealers..The ADMs on GT500 were brutal...i can just imagine what 5500 car production will do to the market place

Axel

1badmirada, I was thinking more around how they were releasing it. I'm just shocked that they got that much right, you know the one where they've been talking about bringing only SRT out with autos the first year, or 08 run, then bringing out the R/Ts with the new engine and then so on. So far they've gotten that part right, but I'm not counting on it going to much further. Here's the link to that part.

http://www.allpar.com/cars/dodge/challenger.html

As for the amount they are putting out, I'm kind of thinking a limited run for the first year for good reason, or maybe bad reason. You get the people out of the way that must have the car in the first year, then it opens up the market for everyone for the following year. Why bring out a large production of a car that is going to have different engines the first year? That doesn't make sense, but then again I may be thinking wrong and this could just keep the market going for this car and make the second year just as bad as the first if they don't start getting more of the cars out there. Anyone else care to speculate why they are doing it this way?

DSkippy

It seems they are, like anyone would, basing their actions on the presence of a learning curve associated with a new production line. Keep the variables to a minimum, learn to produce this car with very few options, perfect the process, then start offering different trim levels, various options once the lines ramp up.

Also, from a marketing standpoint, it doesn't seem to be a leap of faith to suspect that they are counting on having this first wave of Challengers riding around the streets being lusted after in the first half of the year year priming the pump for the big numbers in the second half and following years, right? Second year, sell lots at MSRP with healthy margin for all involved, dealer's happy, Chrysler Happy, consumers happy (to not being paying over MSRP).

1 Bad Mirada

but i dont see how the limited production number in th first model year is going to show them anything. they know how sought after the car is...the guys who pay 3 times the sticker value arent going to be visiting the track, or even the streets that often....

Jeremiah 29:11

I have been mum about this for about a while but I think it is starting to leak out.

There will be less than 10K Challengers with a 6.1L/Autostick and around 8K Challengers from May-June with a 6.5L (yes a new engine) with a manual transmission from July-December.

Bottom line is 18K is not a lot of Challengers in the first year and will probably cost very high.

After the Vegas show, I guess we get to see how accurate this information this is.

Remember if these cars don't sell well for whatever reason (gasoline prices) you probably won't see this car in 2010. Cerebrus has to make money.

For me I am all about the 2009 models.

1 Bad Mirada

i would think that the low numbers and huge markup would slow sales more than fuel prices...

if it got 10mpg, i wouldnt pay any mind to that, but its hard to ignore a huge dealer markup making the car cost twice as much as other cars in its market.

Jeremiah 29:11

That price comment was really more to address the 2009 models, because the rich boys will buy the early 2008 models first and they don't care about gas prices.

I forgot to mention that the 6.1L should be 425 HP and 420 foot-lbs of torque and the 6.5L will be over 500 HP.

ResumeSpeed

6.5L?? Who came up with that number?

Jeremiah 29:11

How about and automotive engineering team?