The following excerpt is from Road & Track: "On Thursday, Stellantis released its Q3 and year-to-date 2025 sales figures. The Dodge brand sold 26,120 vehicles from July through September, which is down 2 percent compared to the same time last year. That's not the surprising part. What surprised us is that six of those sales were for the Dodge Dart ... the same Dart that went out of production in September 2016. Yes, the same month the iPhone 7 was released, Dodge killed off its underwhelming Dart compact sedan. However, in 2024, someone managed to buy a new one—and so far, this year, six new Darts have been delivered to owners. That's a 500 percent increase. Who the heck is buying these, and what kind of discounts are available on new cars that are nearly a decade old? The Dart is what is referred to as a ‘zombie car.’ These are vehicles that are no longer produced, but they still show up on sales reports because dealers still have some in inventory. It's not uncommon for cars to be sold for several months or even a year after they go out of production, if there's a glut of dealer inventory. (After all, sitting in dealer inventory for a long time is often what gets these models killed in the first place.) In other cases, the zombie car may be a specialty model a dealer wants to hold onto, in order to drive foot traffic; think Dodge Viper or Lexus LFA. These can sit around until dealers finally decide to unload them. But nine years is absurd ... especially for a car that, at the time it left production, our relatives at Car and Driver described as by saying, "in nearly every measurable way, the Dart has been surpassed by most of its newer competitors. And the funny thing is, the Dart was not the only zombie car on the most recent Stellantis sales report. In Q 20253, 13 Dodge Journeys were sold along, with eight Caravans. Both of those models went out of production five years ago. For the year, 17 Journeys have been moved, along with 9 Caravans. We wonder if any new Dodge Challenger Hellcats are still lurking around out there?"
