One of One or One of None?

Never say never, right? If you’ve been a part of the Mopar_® community for a long time, you’ve seen some factory-built oddities over the years. They always show up at various car shows like the Carlisle Chrysler Nationals or Spring Fling. As long as man has a hand in building cars, “one-offs” will still get out of the plants and cycle through the dealer and auction network into some unsuspecting owner’s hands.

Despite the modern computer age that tightly controls production scheduling at the plant, “on-time” delivery of assembly line parts and many other things that go into building new cars, we still see strange oddities that were never intended to be available to the general public. We’ve seen this sci-fi movie before in our beloved Mopar hobby, such as the four-door 1966 Coronets being built with the 426-cubic-inch Street HEMI^® engine that was albeit technically available, but so buried and hidden among all the consumer marketing materials and dealer sales guide you’d need to be a hardcore sleuth to find the option.

The craziness continued the next model year as Plymouth introduced its new mid-sized muscle car, the GTX for 1967, and touts the mighty 426 Street HEMI engine as the top engine option and only made it available on that model. Yet some Belvedere I, Belvedere II and Satellite production models got built with the massive HEMI engine. And yes, we know all about the RO/WO Belvedere and Coronet HEMI engine package cars built for drag racing and not street legal like the boulevard bruisers with creature comforts and federally mandated safety equipment, so those don’t count.

The list goes on and on and we can cite other weird creatures like a 1968 Coronet 440 model built at the factory with a 426 Street HEMI engine or the 1971 HEMI Charger R/T that rolled off the line with a Super Bee decal on the long Ramcharger hood instead of the massive “R/T” graphics. And let’s not forget the few Plymouth Superbirds that got splashed in colors not available for these “Wing Warriors” due to the offline painting of the nose cones and wings. But that was over 50 years ago, and we’d like to think current vehicle production is tight and right and the days of “one-offs” getting out of the plant no longer exist. However, as we mentioned earlier, if there’s a human element involved in the design, marketing and manufacturing process, some strange stuff will happen, even today.

Take this 2022 Challenger Scat Pack Widebody in its glowing Stinger Yellow paint for example. You’re thinking “Yeah, so what?” But wait, there’s more to the story here. When the colors were being updated for the 2022 model year on Challenger and Charger, Stinger Yellow was part of the color chart and was listed in the sales brochures as “Late Availability.” But something happened along the way from the design studio approving the color options to revising them. The Stinger Yellow color option got dropped at the plant after this “one-of-one” beautiful example got built and rolled off the line at the Brampton Assembly Plant. It would end up in the vast Stellantis Company Cars Program, sort of like that iconic scene in Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark. When the highly sought-after Ark of the Covenant is being stored away in some government warehouse containing thousands of other antiquities only to forever be lost to time. To many who came in contact with this rare car along its travels, it was just another Challenger Scat Pack Widebody packing a 392 HEMI engine and wearing a High Impact color. They didn’t know about the uniqueness of this particular Challenger or its historical significance. 

So, just how did this Stinger Yellow Challenger Scat Pack Widebody get out of the plant and into the hands of an enthusiast? Well, its journey begins way back to December 14, 2021, in which the Challenger was ordered as part of the Dodge Marketing Fleet to be displayed at various new car shows and enthusiast events to showcase the return of the Stinger Yellow for the 2022 model year. It was built on March 15, 2022, and two days later, the Challenger was shipped from Brampton Assembly to the Lapeer Road Marshalling Center up in Michigan. Here, it was housed and prepped with other vehicles from the vast Dodge Marketing Fleet.  

But, when Stinger Yellow was dropped and would be replaced with Sublime Green for the 2023 model year, the Challenger could not be displayed and sat in the marshaling yard collecting dust. Even the window sticker does not list the color because Stinger Yellow was removed in the system. In late fall of 2022, it was time for Dodge to cycle out their older marketing vehicles and send them off to the various auctions and order the new 2023 models. The fate of the Stinger Yellow Challenger Scat Pack had it heading to an auction to potentially sit on a dealer’s lot. Even at this point, no one knew the rarity of this particular Challenger Scat Pack Widebody, and it could’ve easily vanished until fate intervened. 

That’s when a passionate gearhead got wind of the car and realized this was one rare machine. He acted fast, made a few phone calls, did the proper paperwork and purchase the 2022 Stinger Yellow Challenger Scat Pack Widebody before it headed to an unknown fate. His plans are to preserve this car for years and not do any modifications. He knows this is a prime example and that even in the 21st century, you still stumble across vehicles that should’ve never been built, but somehow slipped out. Rumor has it another 2022 Challenger left the plant painted Stinger Yellow, but it was a GT model. While we don’t know the fate of that V6 machine, this 2022 Stinger Yellow Challenger Scat Pack Widebody is in good hands. 

You may consider this particular Challenger Scat Pack Wide “one-of-one,” while others might say it’s actually “one-of-none.” Either way, we probably won’t see another factory-built Stinger Yellow 2022 Challenger anytime soon!