The muscle car market in New Zealand is a lot like the Tasmanian Devil – small, but intense. For the 2011 model year, just five Dodge Challenger SRT8 392 Inaugural Edition cars were allocated to the Pacific country. By the time the shipment arrived in Auckland last week, four of the five cars had already been sold.

Chrysler/Dodge NZ divisional manager Todd Groves was ecstatic about the arrival of the cars, saying the limited-edition Challenger provided local customers with “their very own slice of muscle-car heaven.”

“Being such a small market on the international scale, New Zealand is often overlooked for allocation of exclusive vehicles like these, but this time we managed to make it happen for our SRT fans,” he added.

Rules for car ownership vary widely around the world and some would confound many American readers. In the past, a New Zealand owner had to register the car under his or her name in another country for at least 90 days before it could be imported.

However, changes have been made that allow the Challengers to be sold as new. “The rules are for new special limited-production models,” clarified Groves.

The island nation of 4.2 million has little in the way of a domestic auto manufacturing industry, though both Hulme Supercars and Saker Cars – both specialty manufacturers – remain active there. Data from the New Zealand Transport Agency shows that 6,079 new passenger cars were registered in the country during March 2011, an increase of 12.7% beyond the 5,392 cars registered in March 2010.