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Dodge performance cars power profitability

Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat: Moneymaker


December 14, 2015

Buried at the bottom of a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles investor presentation this month was a startling statistic: Through September, the Dodge brand's "average per unit net margin" has grown 36 percent year-over-year, even as its sales had fallen 14 percent.

What's going on? The brand's refocus on performance has put a little boom boom in the vroom vroom. A Dodge spokeswoman attributed the jump in profitability to "greater demand for higher-margin vehicles like Challenger, Charger and Durango, coupled with higher option rates [and] lower incentives."

Indeed, the Challenger will set a sales record this year, even beating its 1970 numbers at retail, the spokeswoman said. And it's those Challengers -- and Chargers -- that get beefed up as high-margin Hellcats and Scat Packs. Vroom, vroom indeed.

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