At the end of 2023, Dodge ended production of the Challenger Hellcat and its Charger Hellcat sibling, the 700-plus-horsepower weapons of radial destruction that brought supercar output to anyone with well-equipped half-ton pickup truck money. The replacement was going electric for its high-performance variants, and indeed, the Dodge Charger Daytona EV rolled into showrooms late in 2024, already having made a major splash in the culture war. Even in that one-year gap, it seemed like the end of mass-market supercharged V8 lunacy had come and gone. There’s just one problem — it hadn’t.
It’s now 2025, and Dodge’s own inventory tool claims that 277 supercharged Challengers are still for sale brand new on dealer lots across the country. So what gives? Are these things marked up beyond MSRP? I won’t lie, some of them are, especially limited-run models like the Demon 170. However, some of them have the opposite of markups going on and if you do a bit of digging, you can find brand-new Challenger Hellcat muscle cars advertised below the prices on their window stickers.
Take this Granite Pearlcoat example in California. Its window sticker totals out to $82,149 including freight, but right out of the gate, the selling dealer is cutting $5,000 off of MSRP. As a bonus, Dodge is throwing in an additional $750 discount if you take delivery by Jan. 5, and the selling dealer is topping that up with an additional $1,000 discount on the same deadline. It all adds up to an advertised $6,750 off of a new Challenger Hellcat.
Alright, perhaps that’s not a dark enough shade for you. Well, over in Illinois, this Pitch Black Challenger Hellcat carries a sticker price of $86,282 including freight. However, the dealership selling it has it listed for $74,995, and if we do the math, that’s $11,287 off of sticker. Now, you still have to add the dealer documentation fee and titling, but we’re still talking about a five-figure discount on an American icon.
Like blue? This brand-new B5 Blue Challenger Hellcat Jailbreak is being advertised for $72,980, despite carrying an MSRP of $75,980. However, dig into the dealer website, and you’ll find $898 of dealer add-ons on this Hellcat, meaning the real discount’s $2,102. Granted, one of the dealer add-ons is LoJack with a one-year trial, and given how thieves also like Hellcats, reputable third-party vehicle tracking is actually something you might want. The other is window tint. Still, $2,102 off a brand new Hellcat isn’t bad, and if you aren’t a fan of blue, the same dealer has six other Challenger Hellcats with $2,102 or more off of MSRP.
How about another new Destroyer Grey Challenger Hellcat, up for sale in Illinois. It carries a window sticker price of $82,059, but the selling dealer has discounted it by $9,000. Again, brand new car, it’s just been sitting on the lot for more than a year. Gotta turn metal to earn, right?
Oh, and if you want a Charger Hellcat, those are still out there too. Dodge lists 87 of them in national inventory, such as this red one in Michigan. It carries a window sticker price of $90,745, but the dealer’s advertising a $10,944 discount on it, resulting in a promoted price of $79,801.
It’s also worth mentioning that these are all advertised prices, and not necessarily selling prices. See, when dealerships accept cars from manufacturers, they usually put these vehicles on floor plan financing, a revolving line-of-credit solution with an interest-free grace period to sustain the sale of new cars. After all, the feasibility of self-financing millions of dollars worth of inventory on the lot is limited in many markets. However, when vehicles stick around on lots for longer than that grace period, they start to incur interest that eats into dealer profit margins. Considering these vehicles have been on dealer lots for more than a year, advertised prices are only jump-off points if you want to get stuck into negotiating.
So, if you’re angry that you can’t buy a new supercharged Charger or Challenger anymore, don’t be, because you totally can. Even though the original Hellcat twins might be out of production, Hellcats are still on dealership lots, and are worst-case one Spirit flight away. Is the internet going to put its money where its mouth is?
(Photo credits: Cars.com sellers, Autotrader sellers)
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Nah, if I wanted a factory supercharged V8 it is going to be a GT500, or buying a Mustang GT and supercharging it on my own. A Stellantis product would be near the bottom of the list. I drove a Challenger Hellcat, it was one of the worst interiors I have ever experienced, and I own a 2004 Mustang. It felt like I was sitting on top of the car, not in it.
hahahaha, no chance I would consider over a C8. Cool cars, for someone else.
No, never. “People want Dodge V8’s! They want the Hemi!”
Except:
People keep saying they want the Hemi to live but they won’t buy a Stellantis product. Why? Because Stellantis sells unreliable products?
So, by extension, that means the Hemi’s they buy from Stellantis are actually unreliable. And I’ll leave it at that.
Brand recognition is also a thing. Even putting aside the quality and reliability issues, there is a huge stigma around owning anything Dodge because people will automatically assume a lot about you and not much of it is good.
And this is why I don’t own a charger. V8 sedan with a usable backseat for the kids? Heck yeah! Perception of owning a charger? No thank you.
Last chance to get a good looking Charger, that rear 3/4 view of the pitch black Hellcat looks gorgeous. The new Charger looks bad, straight up ungainly – the compromises required to make the same roofline work with both a 2-door and 4-door lead to a sedan that looks goofy and a coupe that looks weirdly long and under-developed – long, bland and undeveloped, like sitting a Beta cassette on top of a VHS. I assumed I’d get used to it, kinda like the new Z, but so far it hasn’t happened. Unlike the Z though, which I have seen in the flesh, I’ve yet to come across a new Charger in the wild, so perhaps it will look better in person.
“Is the internet going to put its money where its mouth is?”
I already did; I said I wanted a 4-door Civic Si for less than 20K with low miles, no rust, and not modified. When I finally found one, I bought it; immediately. I’ve driven a Hellcat Charger, it was fun for two days, not something I would ever want to drive daily. If I suddenly came into fuck-it money that added a dozen zeros to my bank account, these would never be on my list.
According to the Car Wizard, head gaskets for Hellcats are NLA.
The lack of availability of basic parts for a reasonably new enthusiast model car would seem a perfect article for the Autopian.
I dislike Dodge, but I find it unlikely that they are NLA. Maybe hard to get/backordered, but they are generally obligated to keep products available for 8-10 years so their maintenance departments can maintain warranties and such.
The Stellantis parts network is a shit show. There were a couple of parts backordered for my truck this summer, and I found one of them on mopar.com in stock and had it shipped to the dealer. The backordered ones they had requested showed up the same day I picked up the truck after the repair.
It’s far more likely that the suppliers aren’t shipping them into channel because Tavares pissed them off enough that they prioritized other orders. People are interpreting “we don’t have them and don’t know when we’ll get more” as discontinued.
But then again, if suppliers aren’t really making them it might as well be a discontinued part…
A sticker price of $90,745, what year in the lord are we living in that a sedan (albeit hotted up sedan) costs.
I had no idea these things were $80K, eeesh!
My local CDJR dealer has had several Hellcats, both Charger and Challenger, sitting on their lots unable to move for years primarily because the advertised “discounts” are total crap. Contradictory stuff like active military discounts stacked on first responder discounts stacked on employee pricing discounts stacked on…you get the idea. But the real kicker is that the impossible-to-get discounts are subtracted from the MARKUP price they put on the things when they hit the lots a year or two ago. So they advertise a $10k discount on a car that’s already marked up $15-20k, and I’m not sure anyone who is shopping a $85-100k Hellcat is desperate enough to turn off their brains and convince themselves they are actually getting a good deal – at least not anymore.
No Doubt ! There are NO discounts here.. Only Markups.. These are all B/S articles. Dealerships tell me that are not in the least bit worried. They will sell Everyone…
Where’s the divorced Dad, with 2 child support payments per month discount?
No wonder they are sitting unsold. Stupid marketing sucks…/s
I’ll keep waiting. Considering getting one used in decent shape when they’re around $30k.
They’re getting there, $45k for 47k miles is not bad at all
It was $38k a few days ago. Does have an accident history though. Who knows what that could be with a Challenger.
Might want to check out Tyler Hoover’s YouTube videos before springing for a “cheap” Hellcat. Quite the saga for a car that you would think would be relatively cheap and easy to sort out American car.
Yeah but he also purposefully seeks out basket cases for content. Legit Street Cars is an alternative option who bought a stolen one that had been recovered for ~$23k and has not had significant issues with it beyond some misc wiring stuff.
The issues with Hoovie’s car are so common that the parts are nearly impossible to get. Good luck!
This does kind of make me skeptical of the popular narrative that the only thing ailing Dodge is killing the Hellcat, and that Tavares-out-Kuniskis-in will help the brand.
The fact is that the expensive muscle cars sell when interest rates are cheap, and rot when interest rates are up.
And it isn’t that far off from what killed these things off the first time around in the ’70s. The pop media line always focuses on the halo models, but those aren’t where any normal major carmaker makes its money.
Yep, exactly. And these were already expensive toy cars people bought for fun. That being said, fuel prices aren’t exactly a hindrance these days.
Not to mention that these things have been on the market for close to a decade now. Why get a new one for $10k off when you can get a used one with only 1000 miles on it for $20k off?
Also true, yes. Not building a ground-up new car for almost 20 years (since the LX and LD platforms are very close) and not even facelifting a car for a decade (the squinty-eye fascia launched in mid-2014 as a 2015 model!) means not only that the product is stale but used cars give buyers a huge chunk of the experience of the new ones.
That narrative is true if you pay attention to the details, when Tavares took over, in only three years the msrp for base hellcat challengers rose from $62,190 (in 2020) to 72,130 (in 2023), it all rose similarly across the lineup and dried up demand because of it, making the cost and payments rise past what the target buyer would previously pay
The base hellcat price rose less than the industry average over that period — average transaction prices went from ~$38k to a hair over $48k (and peaked over $49k in 2022). That’s a 26% jump, which is absurd. Going from $62k to $72k is a lower percentage jump (16%) and basically identical in dollar-terms to the overall average.
I don’t think it’s losing them as many sales as you assert, especially because sales numbers have recovered to 2019 (i.e. pre-pandemic, pre-price-spike) levels.
$90k for a Dodge; was this the Dodge Joe Walsh’s ordinary average guy had?
I can’t see the dealers selling these without taking more off. It seems that the people who wanted one, got one.
And there just aren’t that many of them, period. While yeah, the pandemic screwed with the market, these type of cars are a tough sell pretty much any time. For every one of us who loves ’em, there are a ton of people who have zero interest.
Zero interest of a different sort might help move these things!
These are unserious prices and discounts.
Sitting on the lot for a year and only 9k off? Even the one with 11k off isn’t going to move at that dealer price. That red one looks like they didn’t even bother running it through the wash before taking pictures.
It’s true, the red one looks like a used car listing.