Oh how embarrassing this must be for Ford…
My, how the mighty have fallen. The Ford Mustang, which used to be the 800-pound guerilla in the muscle car segment, has been absolutely crushed by the Dodge Challenger for sales in 2021. This comes after a string of defeats at its Mopar competitor, which no doubt has Ford management in absolute fits. Ceding that much market share to Dodge has really gotta hurt.
Find out why the government wants to put a kill switch in your car here.
For 2021, Ford reports it delivered 52,414 Mustangs to consumers. That sounds like a lot, but it racked up 61,090 Mustang deliveries for 2020. Remember, Ford really took one on the nose with the chip shortages. And since it ditched thinner-margin vehicles for the US market, it was forced to trim back production of Mustangs (and the F-Series trucks, ouch).
In comparison, the Dodge Challenger achieved 54,314 deliveries for 2021. That was an increase over 52,955 for 2020, so the Mopar muscle car is headed in the right direction. We’re sure Ford would argue that a difference of 1,900 units between Challenger and Mustang sales last year isn’t much so that doesn’t constitute a “spanking.” However, it does, especially when the mighty Blue Oval blew an almost 10,000-unit lead from the year before.
But wait, there’s more. If you want to count the Dodge Charger as a muscle car, which we do (especially when equipped with a Hemi) then the Mopar twins absolutely decimated the Mustang, again. Dodge sold 78,389 Chargers last year, up from 77,425 in 2020. Funny how Dodge sales are moving in one direction and Ford sales are sliding in the opposite. But don’t worry, Ford did deliver 27,140 Mustang Mach-Es to consumers versus 3 in 2020, so that’s surging.
From our perspective, Dodge has been focusing on making its two muscle cars compelling and exciting while Ford has seemed intent on making the Mustang live up to Carroll Shelby’s initial impression of the thing. However, Dodge seems poised to jump into the abyss of miserable performance along with everyone else in about two years, all thanks to government regulations automakers like Ford have enthusiastically pushed for. It’s been a fun ride, but the no-fun crowd is about to ruin things.
