Ford Mustang Tops Dodge Challenger in August 2018 Sales
The odds are good that 2018 will be the fourth-straight year where the Ford Mustang wins the annual muscle car sales race, with August being the sixth-straight month where the Motor Company’s pony outran the Dodge Challenger. For those unaware, we no longer include the Camaro in our monthly muscle car sales report because GM has gone to a quarterly reporting system rather than monthly. We will include the Camaro’s numbers next month, when GM issues the numbers for the third quarter of 2018, but this month, the race is between the Mustang and the Challenger. Based on Camaro sales numbers over the past year or so, it is unlikely that Chevrolet would be posing much of a challenge to either of the other two from month to month, but we will learn that all next month.
In the meantime, the Ford Mustang posted its biggest win of 2018 while extending its lead in the annual race to almost 9,000 units.
For those who like to argue the semantics of calling this the “muscle car sales race” since some will insist that the Mustang is a pony car and the Challenger is a muscle car, feel free to substitute the phrase “US two-door sporty coupe sales race”, as the Mustang, Challenger and Camaro outsell all other sporty two-door cars sold in the USA – so you can call it whatever you want, the Mustang and Challenger lead the sales charts.
August Sales
In August 2018, Ford sold 7,487 examples of the Mustang while Dodge sold just 4,647 Challengers, giving the Motor Company its largest win of the year, beating the brawny Mopar muscle car by 2,840 units. Mustang sales rebounded after a rough month in July, but as the 2019s continue to roll out, Ford is seeing strong sales numbers.
As for the Challenger, I have spoken with countless people who have a Hellcat Redeye on order, so I believe that Dodge muscle car sales are low right now because many people are waiting for their 2019 cars. The 797-horsepower Redeye and the new Hellcat with 717 horsepower are sure to combine for a spike in Challenger sales once those models start rolling out within the next month or so.
However, for the time being, the Ford Mustang is rolling along as the bestselling muscle car, pony car, two-door sporty car or whatever else you want to call these cars.
Annual Sales Race
On the year, Ford has sold 55,849 Mustangs while Dodge has sold 46,851 Challengers, giving the Mustang a lead of 8,998 units in the annual sales race. With four months left on the year and the good odds of a spike in Challenger sales, there is a good chance that Dodge could close the gap a bit, but that is a big gap to close in four months – so the odds are on Ford’s side right now.
Camaro Checking In
For those wondering, the last official Camaro sales numbers that we had were after the end of the second quarter, at which point Chevrolet had sold 25,380 muscle cars. Without reporting their July or August sales numbers, the Camaro is 21,471 units behind the Challenger in the annual sales race. This means that in order for the Camaro to be keeping pace with the Challenger, Chevy will have had to have sold 10,736 Camaros in each of the past two months. Chevrolet has never sold that many Camaros in a month since the model returned for 2010, so the odds are overwhelmingly good that when GM announces sales numbers for the Camaro next month, it will be sitting third overall.