Old New Cars Are Selling!

Old cars are selling really well – especially brand new ones.

The 2026 Dodge Durango, for instance. It is 15 years old – because that’s how long it’s been since the last time it was “all new” – but you can buy one that was just built, with no miles on the odometer and the plastic still on the seats, because Dodge is selling the same Durango today that it was selling back in 2011. It’s selling better than ever, too. Dodge has sold nearly 40,000 of them so far this year, which is the most it has ever sold in six months since 2011. It is also – tellingly – doing much better than the new Charger, which just got unplugged after two years of almost no sales at all. Dodge has sold about 4,500 Chargers with engines so far this year. That’s an improvement – but it’s also only about 10 percent of Durango sales.

Put another way, Durango is keeping Dodge afloat.

But why would an old Durango (even if it is brand-new) be so much more compelling to so many more buyers than a brand-new Charger?

Well, perhaps because it is old. Back in 2011, new cars didn’t spy on you or parent you – and neither does the 2026 Durango. At least not nearly as much. It doesn’t come standard with “assistance” technology. Just a blind spot warning system and a system that beeps if you’re about to bump into something while backing up. Lane Keep Assistance – that obnoxious system that parents your steering – is available. Italicized to make a point about it being optional. As in, you can opt out of having to be parented. There is no “drowsy/distracted” driver infra-red nag that watches where you’re looking and scolds you if you’re not looking where some inhuman intelligence thinks you ought to be looking.

Not yet, at least.

It does have a touchscreen, GPS and Wi-Fi (these have been added to the ancient design) so your “data” is probably being mined but – that aside – the 2026 Durango is one of the least Big Brothery new vehicles you can still buy, which partially explains why so many people are still buying it.

There is another inducement – and it’s under the hood. The Durango still comes standard with a 3.6 liter V6. Fifteen years ago, this would have been as startling as finding filling inside a Twinkie. It is now something like finding real cream filling inside a Twinkie (as opposed to some whipped chemical concoction derived from industrial waste, probably). The 3.6 liter V6 is just a V6, too. It is not hag-ridden by the eTorque “mild hybrid” system that afflicts the same V6 installed in 2026 Ram 1500 pickups. The eTorque system is a compliance technology that offers not-much-benefit to the potential buyer. There is a 10 horsepower uptick (305 in the Ram 1500 vs. 295 in the Durango) and a slight fuel economy uptick (20 city, 25 in the Ram vs. 18 city, 25 highway) achieved by shutting off the V6 whenever the Ram isn’t moving or decelerating/coasting. This also fractionally decreases the output of the dread gas CO2 that is no longer considered to be “endangering” by the federal regulatory apparat.

These “gains” come at the cost of the eTorque system itself, which includes an EV-style lithium-ion battery pack (just smaller than the big ones that are installed in full-time EVs) and a 48 volt electrical system and a belt-starter/generator system that’s used to quick-start the V6 during its repeated start/stop cycles. Unsurprisingly, not many people want to buy the eTorque system. That makes the Durango – which lacks it – attractive. Also attractive is that it can be used to pull a trailer (the standard tow rating is 6,200 pounds) and that it can be equipped with a V8 that’s capable of towing even more (8,700 lbs.). But there’s one other thing about the Durango that sells it.

What it costs. More precisely, what it doesn’t cost.

You can buy a new Durango GT – today, right now – with a V6 engine and without 80 percent of the creepy/cloying “tech” that is standard in all the new/new stuff for $38,995. That’s not all, either. You can get a Durango GT with a 5.7 liter Hemi V8 for $43,675.

A new Charger sedan lists for $51,995 to start. It is not – yet – available with a V8 but the hot version of the 3.0 inline six that’s now the standard engine comes with a $56,995 price tag. You can almost hear the Kingfish. Holy Mackerel. Here’s another way to look at it: You could save $13,000 buying a new Durango V6 rather than a new Charger with an in-line six. You could also buy a Hemi-equipped Durango and spend $8,300 less vs. the base Charger with the inline six. You could even move up to the high-performance Durango 392 ($49,995) and still not spend as much as it costs to get the base trim Charger.

Seven passenger seating is free – if you buy the Durango. The lesser array of creepy/cloying technology is priceless.

Yes, of course, the Durango has its rough edges. But these clearly aren’t a problem for the roughly 40,000 people who’ve bought a new/old Durango so far this year. If the pace continues, Dodge will have sold about 80,000 of these ancient but still-appealing rigs by year’s end because they are ancient rigs. Dodge is also probably making a lot of money on each sale, too – because the tooling and so on needed to make these rigs was probably amortized a decade ago. This begs a question that Dodge may want to ask – and answer:

If old/affordable (and profitable) is selling, why not try selling more of the same?

Why not bring back the old Charger and offer it alongside the new one? If the 2023 Charger – which came with the 3.6 standard and listed for $33,200 when it was new – could probably be resurrected and on sale today; it’s only been three years and Dodge probably still has the tooling and so on needed to do that. Do you suppose it would sell better than the new model – as appealing as it is now that it has an engine rather than a battery  – that lists for nearly $20k more to start? Dodge would probably be able to sell fleets of old/new Chargers to police departments, too.

There is precedent for this. Ram sold the old Ram 1500 – the Ram Classic – alongside the new one for several years, because the Classic was still selling. Because there were plenty of buyers turned off by the new iteration. In 2023 – the last year for the old Charger – Dodge sold more than 75,000 of them. That beats Hell out of 4,500 doesn’t it?

Maybe it’s time to turn back time.

. . .

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