Not at all surprisingly, the Ford Mustang was the best-selling muscle car for the first half of this year. What was second place? Not the Chevrolet Camaro, so that leaves us with just one other option, the Dodge Challenger. That's right. A total of 28,668 Challengers were sold during that time period, compared to 38,542 Mustangs and 24,516 Camaros. However, Challenger sales were down by 23 percent compared to last year at this time. Is this a cause for concern? Possibly, but we think Chevy has more to be worried about regarding the Camaro.

Then again, the auto industry as a whole is experiencing something of a sales slowdown for a variety of reasons, so it makes sense for a niche muscle car such as the Challenger to take a hit. Muscle Cars and Trucks, however, has learned some good news regarding Dodge's big retro coupe that we honestly did not expect. The question boils down to this: which age group is buying them?

"For the Challenger, it's the youngest buyer in the segment, so there's something to be said about that," said Kevin Hellman, the current brand manager for the Challenger. But what is "young" in this case? 51 years old. Is that not a bit deceiving on Hellman's part? Perhaps at first, but it is correct because the average buyer age for the Mustang and Camaro is 53 years old.

In fact, the number of new car buyers over the age of 55 has increased by 15 percent since the year 2000. So basically, new car buyers are getting older as the years progress, but that's not the case for the Challenger, technically speaking.

This is all good news for the Challenger because, as we also recently learned, Dodge has no intention to alter its retro appearance when it comes time for a complete redesign, which shouldn't be too far off. Remember, the Challenger's LT platform is old, dating back to 2008. It can even be considered nearly ancient from an auto industry perspective.

Dodge has remained tight-lipped regarding what platform will underpin the next-gen Challenger and its Charger sedan sibling. But if we had to make a guess, we'd go with the Giorgio RWD platform currently underpinning the Alfa Romeo Giulia and Stelvio. No targeted launch date has been announced.