Hot Hellcat may burn dealers

[wingcar]

Hot Hellcat may burn dealers
FCA issues warning on 'unscrupulous' tactics

By Larry P. Vellequette
March 9, 2015

DETROIT -- With an unprecedented 707 hp, 2015 Dodge Challenger and Charger SRT Hellcats break the rules for domestic performance cars.

Now, some Dodge dealers are at least bending some rules, too.

U.S. Dodge dealers have been told they may get only one Hellcat a month for the foreseeable future.
Yet one salesman at a small-town dealership in Ohio has taken deposits and placed orders from consumers nationwide for more than 200 Hellcats since last fall, Automotive News has learned.

Meanwhile, consumers on the enthusiast website Hellcat.org report being asked by some dealers for nonrefundable deposits of as much as $5,000 just to get in line to buy a Hellcat.

Some dealers are selling Hellcats by taking sealed bids from consumers. Other dealers are testing the auction-price limits for the hot-selling cars on sites such as eBay.

Several dealers nationwide are asking for up to $25,000 of pure-profit "market adjustments" to the Hellcats' sticker price. The price increases, which are legal, are common on the websites of dealers who show unsold Hellcats in their inventory or those who sold them on eBay above the sticker price.

In a company blog Feb. 27, Gualberto Ranieri, the chief spokesman for Fiat Chrysler, took the unusual step of chastising "a handful" of dealers for what he called "unscrupulous" practices surrounding the sale of Hellcats.
Ranieri warned that some of the more egregious dealer actions could threaten franchise agreements or even may be illegal.

Long line

Ranieri didn't identify whom he was referring to, yet Bob Frederick could be on the list.

Frederick is the "performance car manager and Dodge Challenger specialist" at Columbiana Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram in Columbiana, Ohio, a town of about 6,000 people between Youngstown, Ohio, and Pittsburgh.
He is a lifelong Dodge enthusiast and a former dealer himself. His family's dealership was one of 789 Chrysler Group stores rejected during the 2009 bankruptcy.

Frederick won't say exactly how many deposits for sold orders he's taken for Hellcats. Sources put the number at over 200. A sold order is one in which a customer has signed a purchase agreement but hasn't taken delivery of a vehicle.

The 2015 Charger SRT Hellcat starts at $65,290 while the Challenger SRT Hellcat starts at $61,090. Both prices include delivery and gas-guzzler fees.

"I've only delivered a few. I haven't gotten clearly what I thought we would. I got totally caught by surprise" by the demand and lack of inventory, Frederick said. "I'm confident that Chrysler's going to get this figured out. The good thing is the conversation wouldn't even be going on if people didn't want the car."

Frederick says the deposits he's taken are fully refundable and that when the dealership gets a Hellcat, it will deliver it immediately and sell it no higher than the sticker price.

Frederick said he's been open with his customers -- many of whom previously bought a Challenger or high-performance SRT model from him, he said -- about where they are on the list and that it may be a while before they get their cars.

"I do have a legion of customers out there. People tend to gravitate toward you if you're honest," Frederick said. "I'm not going to change my values. Whether I'm getting 50 [Hellcats] a month or one a month, I'm just not going to screw up my reputation over that."

Frederick said he believes that Dodge will "get this figured out."

Supply and demand

Dodge dealers so far have delivered more than 2,200 Hellcats, and consumers want many more.
With almost no marketing, Dodge brand head Tim Kuniskis said Fiat Chrysler has received more than 9,000 orders for Hellcats -- double what the automaker had planned for after considering annual sales of such competitive cars as the Corvette Z06 and the Mustang GT.

"There's nothing going on that couldn't be fixed with more Hellcats, and we're working on that," Kuniskis told Automotive News.

Supplier constraints have meant that most of the roughly 2,300 U.S. Dodge dealers will get no more than one Hellcat per month -- and often not even that -- at least for the time being.

"The consumers are getting frustrated," says Don Lee, president of Lee Auto Malls, which operates two Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram stores in Maine. So far, his stores have immediately sold the two Hellcats they have received, both at sticker price.

"We've taken four or five deposits. We'd take a lot more, but we can't give the customer any solid information. After the fourth or fifth deposit, we've got to look the customer in the face and say, 'It could be a year or more,'" Lee said.

Kuniskis credits most dealers with managing the outsized consumer demand for Hellcat-powered Challengers and Chargers with an inventory allocation system that seems byzantine to outsiders. The complicated allocation system takes into account items such as total Dodge sales and whether previous Hellcats sat unsold on the dealership lot for more than four days.

Kuniskis said, "We know customers don't understand allocation systems. For months, they've been telling us to be transparent. But they don't necessarily care about transparency, they care about when they're going to get their car."

[Ghoste]

Anyone paying a 5000 dollar NON refundable deposit or a 25k market adjustment deserves a kick in the ass.

[ws23rt]

I agree that jumping into an order that may not be filled for many months or more and placing a nonrefundable deposit is silly.  Add a 20k+ markup and it's just crazy.

However I'm looking at it through my eyes and my history of working hard for just enough to live in comfort. I want one and may eventually get one but My 09 SRT is a lot of car. It might be 80%-90% of a hellcat.  If I sold my srt for it's market value and bought a hellcat for msrp I would be paying about 30k for 10%-20% more car.---I'm in for that and even that seems like a stretch for my practical mind.

I'm sure there are many out there with much money that want one of these cars and dropping 20-30k extra means little or nothing.

If I won the lottery and could toss money like confetti I wonder if my thinking would change?----I think not---

[charger Downunder]

Every car makers dream demand out doing supply. Chrysler finally has something the public wont and were not prepared for the demand crazy stuff.

[ws23rt]

It is fun to see something like this unfold.
Dodge/ whoever allowed a group in the company to make something hot and priced it low enough to upset the norm. 
Now they have to live with it.

[Mike DC]

               
We are all into the Hellcat's horsepower figures but I don't think the 700hp is the whole story.  IMO the car being bigger than a little Mustang coupe was just as crucial to the success. 

I wonder if an 800-hp fullsize 4dr pickup version of the concept might blow away all sales projections too. 

[JB400]

 Allpar is predicting the Hellcat Grand Cherokee is in the works.

[Ghoste]

Hmm, I don't know about that.  Chrysler thought it was brilliant marketing to ty and sell RT badges on Jeeps and minivans and they also thought that making SRT versions of anything with wheels would keep the factories struggling to keep up too.  A lot of things aren't cool just because they're fast.

[Mike DC]

The existing SRT packages on Jeeps & minivans aren't comparable IMO.  They might perform surprisingly well for what they are, but they aren't anywhere near the "holy shit!" power levels of a Hellcat.


I have doubts about a Jeep or minivan Hellcat selling.  But a fullsize Ram might.  

There have been hot-rod Mustangs & Camaros for decades.  700 hp is a notch up but so is 4200 lbs of curb weight.  What makes this different?  I suspect it's the size of the car.  A modern Mustang, or even a Camaro, is a tiny little vehicle on today's roads.  A Challenger/Charger has a backseat that isn't a joke.  A 240-lb man feels like he belongs there.  It's a whole different market.    

The 700 hp figure also probably helps a lot too. It just sounds like so much.  A Chally Hellcat that weighed 3800 lbs & 630 hp would have the same power-to-weight ratio but it sounds less impressive.  

[wingcar]

For those wanting a Hellcat and can't afford the price of admission at this time or just don't see the worth of paying a premium over the sticker price just for the privilege of being one of the first on your block to own one.....just wait a while.  In the future you will start to see used Hellcats on the market from those that have sacred themselves one too many times (and are tired of having to change their shorts every time they take it out for a drive).  Or from those that want to sell and recoup some of their "investment".  I am not saying that Hellcats will be cheap, but certainly you will be able to found some for sale at prices near their original sticker price rather than the outrageous prices some dealers are asking.   I have no crystal ball, therefore I have no idea what the future collectability of a Hellcat will be, certainly they will hold much of their value, if the production rate remains low...but the track record for most late model "collector" cars shows that the values drop and will never approach what the old musclecars are going for.   There are of course exceptions to the rule...and only time will tell if the Hellcat becomes one of them.

[Patronus]

Allpar is predicting the Hellcat Grand Cherokee is in the works.

Because 4 burnouts are better than 2!

[Ghoste]

So true wingcar, every auction we do finds a number of people with late model "collectibles" and they are always stunned when the crowd provides their instant appraisal.

[War wagon]

There is a 70 super bird on hellcat.org that is getting a 6.2L Heelcat drivetrain

[Mike DC]

 
Simple principle:  You can't make a brand new mass-produced collectible item. 


Although . . . the Hellcats will probably do pretty well as modern cars go.  They have a lot of mass appeal, the production numbers are moderate, and a percentage of them won't survive the decade. 

 

[SRT-440]

There is "only" 300-400lbs difference between a Camaro and Challenger (or something like that).

With that said, Boucillion Performance HAS Hellcat crate motors for around 16K....put one in a 3600lbs b-body and kill everyone.  

[Road Dog]

I think the SXT Challenger is around 3860 or so the R/T about 4100 the SRT about 4250 and the Hellcat 4400. A GT Mustang comes in at 3530 and a Camaro SS about 3860.

[SRT-440]

Another thing the hemi's are making more power than other engines...the LS3 usually dyno's around 350-380 to the rear wheels...my stock 392 put down 406 to the rear wheels..and others are documented all over the interwebs making around the same.
I think the 5.7 is around 320-340.