Today is the day. Dodge dealerships can now officially start taking orders for the Challenger Demon, assuming they were allocated one to sell in the first place.
Dodge will be offering up only 3,000 of these drag-ready beasts for the U.S. market and 300 for Canada. But before you run into the dealership screaming “take my money,” there are a few things you should know.
It’s possible that your local dealership wasn’t any allocated Demons to sell. If you’ve never seen a Hellcat in the wild in your neck of the woods, it’s a safe bet your local dealer won’t be selling any Demons. Allocations will be based first on Hellcat sales (both Challenger and Charger; at least two in the last year) and then on other Challenger and Charger variants.
If you’ve never heard this in person, you won’t be hearing this in your driveway.
Assuming you’ve found a dealer with a Demon to sell you, you might want to ask exactly how much money you need to throw at them. The MSRP of the Demon is $84,995. Some dealers may want a “small” deposit, while others may want the whole thing up-front. Some may even want a lot more than sticker price.
And about that sticker price—if you happen to get one for at or below MSRP, Dodge will push your order to the front of the line, according to a press release from the automaker. If you feel you must pay more than MSRP because Dodge deserves all the money you can give them, your order goes to the back of the line. Dodge is putting dealership profits aside to get cars in the hands of those who paid the least first.
Of course, dealership profits go to the dealerships, not Dodge. If you have a dealership in your area that moves a high volume of cars, they would probably be the best bet to throw money at. Maybe you’ll even get lucky and find a dealership willing to take a huge loss in order to get the first Demon. But only one person will be that lucky.
So now is the time to run as fast as you can to the dealership, waving around a wad of cash screaming “take my money!” Of course, if you already had a Dodge Demon, you’d get there a lot faster.