Someone's Really Trying To Sell A Used Dodge Challenger SRT Demon For $550,000

There's no question housing prices in California are over the top, and that must be giving car sellers ideas. Someone there has a used 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon listed online for $550,000. That's a whole new level of Demon markups—like, the level where you fight the boss and the boss always wins the game.

This listing is by a private seller and in the $500,000 range on more than one selling platform, meaning it isn't some kind of laughable dealer typo. The sale listing is also almost entirely press photos from Dodge or screenshots of the Demon's debut, with the only non-press photos being pictures of a vehicle with the Demon car cover on it. That made us at Jalopnik question the listing, but a search of the car's VIN showed that its registration location matches where it's listed for sale and the area code on the provided phone number.

The car also has a lien reported on the title and 85 miles listed on it, meaning anyone willing to pay that will get a Dodge with 35,915 miles left on the limited vehicle warranty for more than half a million. Smart financial decision there.

For the price of this Demon, a person could buy nearly three base Lamborghini Huracans or nearly three Acura NSX models at MSRP, a few homes in a wealthy area of Texas, four and a half 2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1s, a 22-month Pagani lease, or almost seven Demons at regular price. That's a lot of stuff.

Jalopnik has reached out to a person familiar with Demon resales to see if a $550,000 asking price is at all realistic, since it's hard to believe it would be, and will update if we hear back.

The Demon is special, of course, especially for those who appreciate straight-line speed. It's rated at 840 horsepower on racing fuel, and Dodge claims it can do a quarter mile in 9.65 seconds at 140 mph. It was also only made for one model year across 3,300 models, with 3,000 going to the U.S. and 300 to Canada.

But, as Dodge praises itself for "supercar performance at affordable prices," the base Demon retailed for $84,995. A lot of sales didn't go down with that motto in mind. Dealership markups went into the mid-$100,000 range despite Dodge trying to curb them, and a dealer still had a Demon priced at $175,000 in March.

Resale markets for "used" Demons—as in, Demons that have been "used" for enough miles to put the odometer into the high single digits—are hovering between $120,000 and $200,000 now. The second-highest Autotrader listing under this half-a-million sucker punch, as of this writing, is $200,000 even.

Please, friends, live your life and be free. But do not pay more than $500,000 for a Dodge with a 36,000-mile warranty and a backseat that has to be accessed by pulling a front seat forward. There is no freedom in that kind of recklessness.

Update 1:53 p.m. Our contact who's familiar with used Demon resales said they think market for the cars will continue to creep up toward $500,000, especially as U.S. fuel-economy standards go up—for the time being, that is—and that this seller may very well get what they're asking for. Impressive.