Ford Mustang Beats Dodge Challenger in a Strong May

May 2018 was a great month for the American muscle cars, with the Ford Mustang posting its best sales numbers of the year, beating the Dodge Challenger which posted its third-best sales month in the modern era.

Before getting into June muscle car sales, I want to start by reminding everyone that General Motors is no longer issuing monthly sales numbers, so unfortunately, after years of discussing the sales race between the Ford Mustang, the Chevrolet Camaro and the Dodge Challenger – our discussion has been whittled down to just two cars. We should get a quarterly sales report from GM next month, at which point we will see how many Camaros were sold in April, May and June combined, but for the foreseeable future, our monthly muscle car sales race articles will only pertain to the Mustang and Challenger in most months.

Big Sales Month
In May 2018, the Ford Mustang posted its best sales numbers in month than a year, moving 8,739 units last month. That is the best sales month of 2018 for the Mustang and to find a month where Ford sold more than 8,700 units, you have to go back to March of 2017.

May was also a great month for the Dodge Challenger, as with 7,005 units sold, the sixth month of 2018 was the third-best sales month for the modern Challenger. Since the Challenger returned to the Dodge lineup back in 2008, the only months where the company has sold more units than they did in June 2018 were March 2018 (8,150) and May 2015 (7,438).

Of course, with 8,739 units to 7,005 units, the Ford Mustang beat the Dodge Challenger in May 2018 monthly sales, but there is still a win here for the folks at FCA. Both the Challenger and Mustang introduced new versions for 2015 and since then, both cars have seen a boom in sales. While Ford’s numbers peaked much higher, those numbers have fallen while the sales numbers for the Dodge Challenger continue to be among the best that the company has seen since the car returned a decade ago.

Mustang Leads on the Year
As has been the case for every month since the beginning of 2015, the Ford Mustang leads the race for the annual muscle car sales race. Ford has taken the title in each of the past three years and the company is lining up for a fourth-straight title.

As of the end of May, Ford has sold 35,028 examples of the Mustang while Dodge has sold 30,545 units of the Challenger, so the Mustang has a lead of roughly 4,500 units after the first five months of the year. It seems unlikely that the Challenger will string together enough months where the Dodge outsells the Ford to overcome that lead, but right now, 4,500 units is not insurmountable. If Mustang sales diminish while Challenger sales grow over the next few months, Dodge might make a run at the annual title, but right now, the odds support a fourth-straight title for the Mustang.

I should mention that there is a chance that the Chevrolet Camaro could post a huge sales boom and make a glorious come-from-behind victory, but after the first quarter of the year, the Chevy was already more than 6,000 units behind the Ford and worse yet, Camaro numbers appear to be getting worse as time goes on. With that in mind, it seems unlikely that Chevrolet would have a real shot at the title, but we will know more when GM issues their sales numbers for the second quarter of 2018 in July.