How do we know the new Dodge Challenger will sell? Simple: The future muscle car looks great in black. Before a new model is released, we usually only see it in one or two shades of paint. Because of the trouble with photographing a black car at car shows, or in even more controlled settings, car companies rarely show a new car off in black. Dodge made an exception for the Challenger last week.

Now, almost any car looks better in black because it hides flaws in the design, but when black makes the car look mean, tough, even menacing, then it’s the color you have to pick. The Dodge Challenger will hit the streets in 2008, and the production version will debut at next year’s Chicago Auto Show in February. That hasn’t stopped Dodge from showing off the concept version many times. Most recently, it displayed this matte black version tuned by Mopar as a pseudo racecar in Detroit. We bugged Chrysler’s PR department to get us some photos, and they responded with the ones below. Now, tell us this thing doesn’t look great in black?