Over the course of the past week or so, a handful of outlets have published articles proclaiming that the 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat once again has a manual transmission option. As a result, many prospective Dodge owners have contacted dealers to order a supercharged Challenger with the 6-speed manual. However, upon speaking with salespeople at the dealerships, these customers have quickly learned that you cannot order a 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat with the 6-speed manual transmission.
It seems that these outlets saw that the 6-speed manual transmission was listed in the media materials for the 2023 Dodge Challenger as being standard, got excited and wrote an article about it. Some of these outlets even suggested that you head over to the Dodge Horsepower Locator to begin searching for your manually-shifted 2023 Hellcat Challenger. While the media materials do list the M6 as being standard for 2023, the 2022 information also states that the manual is standard in the Hellcat Challenger, so really, nothing in the paperwork changed from 2022 to 2023, but some media outlets still got excited enough to report it.
However, the 6-speed manual transmission is not in the dealerships computer systems for the Challenger SRT Hellcat, so that feature cannot be ordered. Upon realizing this, some of the consumers who had excitedly gone out to order a 6-speed Hellcat messaged me for more information, at which point I reached out to the good people at Dodge for the official word.
As we know, the 6-speed manual transmission is listed as an available feature for the 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat in the media materials (just like it was for 2022), but it is not in the dealership ordering system because it is a “late availability” feature. The brand does not have a clear timeframe as to when it might become available. Oddly, none of the other outlets that have reported on the M6 in the Hellcat Challenger have mentioned that, as it seems like important information that was easily acquired, but that is why you cannot currently order a supercharged Dodge muscle car with the 6-speed manual transmission.
The big question now is whether Dodge will begin offering the 6-speed manual transmission in the SRT Hellcat versions of the Challenger before the 2023 model year units are sold out. It is no secret that 2023 will be the final model year for the current generation of the Dodge muscle car, so it the last chance for many people to buy a Hellcat model. This has led to a rush to order by both prospective owners and dealerships alike, so allocation inventory levels are diminishing quickly. It seems that if all of the allocations on the Dodge Garage Horsepower Locator were to sell out over the course of the next few months, there is a possibility that by the time that the M6 is set to hit the order banks, there won’t be any 717-horsepower Hellcat Challengers left for 2023 to order with that transmission.
Of course, if the Dodge brand announces later this month or early next month that the 6-speed manual transmission is available for order, there will be no concern of vehicle shortages, but if the most powerful American automaker takes until later into the 2023 calendar year to begin taking orders on the 6-speed manual, there could be few cars left to be ordered with that gearbox – possibly making them the rarest of the Last Call Dodge Challengers.
