In America right now you can buy a 797hp Dodge Challenger Hellcat Redeye with a $7,970 discount, a ‘regular’ 717hp Hellcat with $7,170 off or an R/T Scat Pack with $4,850 taken from its list price. Honestly. It’s all possible thanks to a new Dodge Power Dollar scheme, which for every horsepower a Challenger, Charger or Durango SUV produces, gives a buyer ten dollars back in cash. Hence the near $8k off for the near 800hp Redeye. Genius!
If you’ve not followed the US car market in recent years it would be easy to assume such discounts come in a bid to boost sales at Dodge. But in actual fact, Dodge has long cemented itself as the US’s most popular performance saloon maker with the Charger and is second only to the Mustang in the two-door segment, as well. Maybe this is Dodge attempting to mount a charge (ehem) on Ford’s lead – or perhaps it’s simply throwing two fingers up to rivals in a cloud of American V8 smoke.
We particularly love that Tim Kuniskis, Dodge’s head of passenger cars, has decided to total the outputs of all the Chargers and Challengers sold since the latest versions were introduced in 2006 and 2008 respectively. He said: “Dodge has put 485 million horsepower into the hands of our loyal enthusiasts,” the brand “has more horsepower than anyone else, and we want to share it and give those who have always wanted more the ability to get more”. What a guy.
It’s here that the apparent truth behind Dodge’s new scheme is revealed; Kuniskis added: “The goal is to grow to a half-billion horsepower before the end of the year. This is what we believe John and Horace Dodge would want us to do”. Amen to that. We’re not jealous at all.
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