'06 getting owned by 5.0 Rustang

[moparjohn]

The new Chally WILL be 40k plus- If produced the 99 concept Charger would have been in excess of 80k

[Brock Samson]

how do you know the price of the charger would have been in excess of $ 80 K?
that's a pretty bold statment don't ya think?.

[Lord Warlock]

I was thinking the same thing, especially since the 99 was on the intrepid frame, which already looked fairly similar. 

[plum500]

And the 99 was a concept in the true sense of the word. Not at all near production so I'm not sure they even got within orbit of discussing retail price.

[Charger74]

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,21453.0.html

this is another thread on the same Mustang from last week...

   speakin of viper compitition,.. have ya seen this?..

http://www.worldcarfans.com/spyphotos.cfm/spyphotoid/6061010.003/country/nssn/nissan/spy-photos-nissan-skyline-gt-r

Brock, the first one is the new Skyline that Nissan will finally be sending to the USA.   Like it or not, that car is fast.  The old ones inline 6 could handle up to 1,000 horses without any internal modes.  I believe these will have a twin-turboed v-6. 

OK read the link, it states it will have a v8 in it.

[Brock Samson]

yeah but the lexus is said to be a twin turbo v-6 again with four wheel drive,..  and those holes in the rear corners are for the fans that will suck the car to the ground,..
anyone remember the Chapperal 2-J "Sucker Car"?..

not really in the neo-pony realm but my point was they are two door coupes,.. and get this other supercoupes are due from infinity, acura, subaru and alfa, among others...

[moparjohn]

At the TDC meet this past year in Mo. I and some other Charger lovers got to spend some time with a current DC employee He was open to talking about the cars and included the 06 Charger.  The main reason the 99 concept would have been so expensive is the body pannels.  the front fenders and so on would have had to be stamped multiple times to get those sleek curves and so on. This is very expensive, for example a 69 Charger front  fender was stamped 6 times to get it's shape. New cars are stamped 2 times on average.  That alone is enogh reason to DC to not build the cars. by the way cars made for "show" are also not made with any concern for federal mandates that must be met, so other changed would have also been nesc. When we talked to the guy he asked "if the Challanger was to be produced how much do you think it will sell for?" I quickly answered that a base car with 6.1 ltr and 6 speed should be 25k- he said NO WAY POSSIBLE! try starting around 40k. All of these questions were of corse answered off the record.

[Lord Warlock]

If what you say is true, and i have no reason to doubt it, the challenger will be a flop just like the new charger.  They'll have to control the costs to a point where the car sells in the mid 30s or it just won't sell to the masses.  In fact, they won't compete with the mustang unless they figure out how to sell one below 30k somewhere at least in a base form.  Otherwise they'll be encouraging buyers to buy the mustangs.  Once cars get over 34k, the payments start bordering a mortgage payment.  I would think the pricing scales would be similar to the charger cars, high twenties for base models, and low 40s for the high end ones.  I love mopars, have owned at least one (2 most ofthe past two decades) but I drive a ford for a reason.  Price.  You recoup tooling costs (stamping fenders) by thinking in volume, such as selling over 100,000 units a year. 

[73chgrSE]

Is the new charger really a flop? I see alot of them on the road. Anyone know production #'s?

[Lord Warlock]

They may not be a real flop, but they aren't hard to buy, and lots of them are on the used lots already, I doubt they came anywhere near the levels of sales that they could have.  Nowhere like the mustang at least. 

[plum500]

Here's the sales #'s...

http://www.lxforums.com/board/lx_sales.php?

[Dave22443]

Well, accourding to those numbers, the Charger has sold 103,000 units in 2006, with December still not counted.  What I would like to see as a way to compair is how many Mustang units sold in the same time frame? (I couldn't find any in a quick Google search)

I for one have given serious consideration to buying a new Charger.  Not because it has the Charger name, which I disagree with, but because I think its a really good car for my family (in V6 trim) to replace my high milage minivan (there are, after all, only 4 of us).  Of course, I have now put those plans on hold while I wait to see what the new Challenger will offer, so who knows? 

I'm not one to quickly dismiss the new Charger, but a 40K+ price tag for a new Challenger won't drive me away either, so long as it delivers on all the hype.

[Ghoste]

For some reason the link didn't work for me.  How many months total do those figures represent?

[plum500]

~44K for 2005 (about 4 mos) and the ~105K for Jan through Nov 2006.

[Shakey]

How can anyone compare the sales figures of a 2 door coupe (Mustang) vs. a 4dr sedan (Charger)?   

I would think that if you want to compare "apples to apples", you need two or more items from the same category, or in this case, the same class of car.

[bull]

I bet half of those 103,634 '06 "Chargers" became cop cars or rentals, maybe some fleet cars too. I'd like to see a breakdown.

[Lord Warlock]

Since dodge doesn't make a 2 door performance coupe, other than the viper, i'm only comparing the charger's success to the mustangs success.  Dodge marketed the charger as a competitor to the gto and mustang.  I think the charger is aesthetically pleasing for a 4 door sedan, and in ways better than the 300, but as a performance sedan it just doesn't cut it for me, even with the big 6.1 hemi in it. 

As far as a comparison goes, the mustang's sales volumes were 155,285 in 2006 thru november, and averaging 10k per month so maybe 165k total for 2006 and 150,749 in 2005, so the charger isn't doing as poor as I surmised before, but ford still is doing 50% more than dodge is.  Considering that ford is going thru major hardships right now losing a very large chunk of its labor force, the mustang is doing pretty well.  Evidently the 2 door sports coupe is not as dead as dodge believed when it chose to move to the 4 door market and forsaking the 2 door. 

I got the figures from: http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=24888&make_id=trust

[bull]

Like it says in my signature, "No-one would have questioned the strategy if it had been called anything other than Charger."

[Steve P.]

here's another forthcoming japanese two door rear wheel drive coupe that's in the 500 HP league..
i think these are both four wheel drivers..

the new lexus...

Oh boy is this car going to look like shit after the American market twists it into a four door grocery getter.

MOM.  Yes Johnny.. Where's my soccer ball??

[Steve P.]

I bet half of those 103,634 '06 "Chargers" became cop cars or rentals, maybe some fleet cars too. I'd like to see a breakdown.

I recently saw one being used as a TAXI...   Charger/CHECKER!!

[moparjohn]

those new cars lf-a are &%$(@*!  ugly. IMO

[Johnny SixPack]

How can anyone compare the sales figures of a 2 door coupe (Mustang) vs. a 4dr sedan (Charger)?   

I would think that if you want to compare "apples to apples", you need two or more items from the same category, or in this case, the same class of car.

And people have to take into account the fact the DCX is forcing dealers to buy vehicle they aren't ordering due to the fact that DCX is producing vehicle that orders weren't placed for.

It's creating a false sense of success and will once again plunge Chrysler (not so much Mercedes since they'll more than likely just cut and run once the sh*t really hits the fan) into near ruin again.

[Brock Samson]

usually they have a one week shut down for the holidays but this time around it's gonna be alot longer so they have building a stockpile of salesbank cars on overtime stashed all over detriot.

[bull]

'06 getting spanked by an Escort: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=416329103756477928&q=dodge+charger&hl=en

[Dave22443]