Dodge Comes To Rescue Of Soldier Scammed Out Of His Challenger SRT Demon 170 While Deployed

The brotherhood of muscle are raging at the recent news of a dealership’s eyebrow-raising behavior with an active-duty soldier who purchased a rare Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170, only to have it sold from under him. In a matter of days, this story has gone viral and even managed to reach the ears of Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis.

How Did a Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 Get Mixed Up?

This story first began at Mac Haik Dodge in Flowood, Mississippi. An unnamed active-duty servicemember of the U.S. military had put in an order for a Last Call 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 at a $50,000 markup in F8 Green. The customer was under the impression that the Challenger would be scheduled for delivery while they were deployed overseas, so it was arranged for family members to pick it up upon its arrival.

RELATED: The Last Available 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 Was Sold For $700k

However, this same dealership had also promised another customer a Challenger SRT Demon 170 as well. So when this customer drove eight hours to see the car promised to them, the dealer offered them the same F8 Green Demon 170 that was purchased by the servicemember, but at an even higher price than what they paid for it.

When Things Got From Bad To Worse

Once the deal was made, the new owner of this rare muscle car shared his excitement on Facebook. But this is where things get really tense. As it turns out, the servicemember who had originally purchased the Demon 170 was also part of the Facebook group where the post was shared. From there, the two quickly realized what had happened.

As news of this story began to spread, the Mac Haik dealership was under some heavy fire from the public. Unfortunately, some employees at the dealership fumbled at the blow back and actually made things worse after William LaGrange, the GM of a Mac Haik Chrysler franchise in Texas, claimed that there never was a Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 ordered in the servicemember’s name, and even accused them of lying about their military history. Yikes.

The Happy Ending

Pretty soon, this story made its way up to Tim Kunuskis, the CEO of Dodge. Because the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 is no longer in production, building this service member a new car would not be possible. In addition to that, there were no units in the nationwide inventory that matched this customer’s ordered spec. The customer who unknowingly purchased the F8 Green Challenger arranged to return it to the dealer, now with some miles on it, but it still wasn’t the car the servicemember had initially bought.

So this is where this story has its happy ending. On the back end, Dodge had reserved 40 Demon 170s to reward its top dealers. So the company chose one of the Pitch Black cars and will send it through Dodge’s Jailbreak program, have it repainted the F8 Green to factory standard, and have it built to match the specs the servicemember had ordered in the first place. All at no charge.

As an added bonus, the delivery ceremony of this car will be handled by Jay Leno at his garage. Just goes to show you that the “Brotherhood of Muscle” really does have its members’ backs.

In a statement released to Stellpower, the servicemember had this to say of the whole ordeal. “Many other owners and the guy who purchased my original vehicle have reached out and offered their own solutions. I’ve had many people offer up their own cars to me for purchase. The guy who purchased mine even offered to spend more money to buy another one if I wanted to buy mine from him.”

“The brotherhood is real. All those options were well received, and I was grateful for everyone’s willingness to help but it wasn’t on them to fix. It should have been on the dealership to fix. I only ever spoke to two people from Dodge with one being Tim himself. Both have been overly helpful and responsive throughout the entire situation.”