The Challenger Won Battles, the Mustang Won the War

By John Coyle - January 13, 2023

Sure, the Challenger bested the Mustang in sales last year. But it’s effectively dead — and the Mustang lives to fight another day.

The numbers are in, and for the second straight year, the Dodge Challenger bested Ford Mustang in sales. Ma Mopar moved 55,060 examples of the Charger, while the Blue Oval sold 47,566 Mustangs. For those keeping score, that’s an even bigger delta than there was in 2021, when Dodge sold 54,314 Challengers to Ford’s 52,414 Mustangs. With 24,652 cars sold, the Chevy Camaro was a distant third — even though that figure represents a 12 percent improvement over the previous year.

Now, nobody expected that the Camaro would become king of the mountain in 2022, especially since the GM Lansing Grand River Plant where it’s made was idled twice over the course of the year. Exactly why the Challenger was able to take another win is unclear. It likely has something to do with the approximately 10,000 — kidding, it’s closer to 500 —special edition Challengers Dodge released last year. It’s also important to note that the impending S650 launch likely kept some Mustang buyers from pulling the trigger, and the horsepower drop probably didn’t help either.

But the Mustang will live to fight another day, while the Challenger and Camaro are effectively dead.

Because after 2023, neither Dodge nor Chevy will offer a gas-powered muscle car. While electric replacements are planned, for both the Challenger and the Camaro, the days of roaring V8s and manual transmissions are over for each of them. Come 2024, the Mustang will be the only domestic coupe that you can get with an eight-pot and — thank the stars — a manual transmission. Sure, the Challenger will likely go out with a bang, but celebrating a Pyrrhic victory is a loveless affair. Chevy will just have to take solace in the fact that it still builds the Corvette.

So that makes the Ford Mustang the ultimate victor in the muscle car wars, as it predates both the Challenger and the Camaro — and will outlive them both. Someday, we’ll have to say goodbye to the conventionally powered version of Ford’s Prized Pony, but that time isn’t quite here yet. And when the final example rumbles off the line? That car will be the last of its kind, and an icon of a movement that changed the landscape of American automotive enthusiasm forever.

Photos: Dodge, Ford, Chevrolet