Dodge Challenger, Charger and Viper Outsell Every Brand's RWD Lineup

FCA is positioning the Dodge brand as one which focused on high performance, with their marketing highlighting their high performance, rear wheel drive models including the Challenger, the Charger and the Viper. Dodge also sells the Caravan, the Journey, the Durango and the Dart, but there is no question that the heart and soul of the modern Dodge brand is their rear-drive performance cars.

Right now, that is looking like a good idea, as the rear wheel drive, performance oriented models are selling well. In fact, the Challenger, Charger and Viper in September combined to outsell the rear wheel drive models from Ford and Chevrolet, but more importantly, Dodge sold more rear wheel drive models than any of the other automakers in the US market.

September 2016 Dodge Sales
In September 2016, Dodge sold 38 Vipers, 5,698 Challengers and 10,056 Chargers, for a combined total of 15,754 vehicles. The Viper number remains low, but the Challenger had its 3rd best month of the year and the Charger had its best month of 2016, outselling every other rear wheel drive sedan sold in America. The Dodge Charger outsold all of the Chevrolet RWD cars combined (Camaro, Corvette, SS - 9,411), all of the Cadillac cars combined (7,415) and all of the Audi cars combined (9,266), while falling just short of outselling all of the Lexus cars combined (10,097).

Mind you, that is just the Dodge Charger compared to the entire car lineups (excluding trucks, vans, SUVs) from Cadillac, Lexus and Audi. When we look at the combined sales of the Dodge Challenger, Charger and Viper of 15,754), those three cars alone outsold all of the BMW cars combined (14,344) and all of the Mercedes Benz cars combined (15,435), as well as the Lexus lineup mentioned above.

You might be wondering why I am focusing on Cadillac, Audi, Lexus, BMW and Mercedes Benz, since we are talking about the Dodge Challenger, Charger and Viper, and the answer is very simple. In terms of rear wheel drive cars, no one offers as broad a lineup as Cadillac, BMW, Lexus and Mercedes, and since I included the other large European brands, I included Audi as well – even though the majority of their vehicles are all-wheel drive.

The point of this comparison is to highlight just how well the Dodge Challenger and Dodge Charger sell relative to the rest of the US auto industry. The Charger sales numbers get lost behind the popular front-wheel drive sedans from Chevy and Ford and the Challenger sales numbers get lost behind the Mustang-Camaro battle. However, the Charger is the bestselling rear wheel drive sedan in America and the Dodge rear-drive cars combine to outsell the entire lineups from those brands which offer the most variations of rear-wheel drive vehicles.

In other words, in September 2016, Dodge sold more rear-wheel drive cars than any other automaker in the USA and come year’s end – there is a good chance that Dodge will have sold more rear-drive vehicles on US soil than any other brand.