Three months after the Dodge Challenger had beaten the Ford Mustang away on the third-quarter reports, the car pulled away for a significant full-year win among American muscle cars.
Ford moved 17,124 in the fourth quarter to complete 2019 at 72,489, thus beating the Challenger’s ultimate tally of 60,997.
Dodge sold 18,301 of the aging coupes – which originally introduced in 2008 – in the third quarter on the back of a “Power Dollars” promotion that provided $10 per horsepower in incentives varying from $2,920 to $7,970, depending on the model, but followed that up with just 14,298 more deliveries through the end of 2019.
The Chevrolet Camaro ended the year a distant third with 48,265 sales following a flat quarter, despite receiving an emergency styling update late in the year in an attempt to improve its appeal.
However, all three of the two-doors had been outsold by the Dodge Charger sedan, which the automaker bills as a four-door muscle car. The full-size family car finds similarity in a platform and many of its powertrain options with the Challenger, consisting of a 707 hp Hellcat V8 that makes it the most powerful sedan and helped it to achieve 96,935 sales.
The Mustang received added attention with the introduction this fall of the $73,995 Shelby GT500, which is a low volume, but the high profile model supposed to put a halo over the whole lineup.
Overall Ford sales dropped 3.5 percent for the last year as it discontinued several cars and sales of its popular passenger models, the Explorer and Escape, both observed double-digit reductions during the transition to all-new versions that got into production mid-year.
