Chrysler dead?

[JC_Dude]

Dodge doesn't deal in subtelty anymore. They just went with the strategy of cramming the most ridiculous engines in their cars and, to be fair, it seems to be working for them. If you go to dodge.com their tagline is "Muscle Cars and Sports Cars". I have no idea why they still have the Grand Caravan on offer, but I guess if it sells, then why not?

 

[psntomaz]

What happened to marques like Dodge producing 'normal' saloons and compacts like the Neon, Stratus, Monaco and Intrepid? The last not-a-sports-car I recall Dodge making is the Dart. And Chrysler, even if I admit not really seeing much differentiation between the two marques in the past, used to have conventional models like the Sebring, 300M and 300C. And I'm not saying those were good cars but they were at least a measure of a company with a wide model portfolio.

Ever since the fifth gen Mustang came out in 2005 the big three, Chrysler especially, seem to be reliant on their retraux muscle cars and on "horsepower war" special editions in the last five years in particular.

There is no need for a company to have a wide range of product in its line up anymore. Despite Chrysler only having 2.5 cars (there are new 200's to be sold), They sell about the same or MORE units than all of Buick in the States. Chrysler is Up on Buick by 3.618 units. Buick has a full line up of cars (6).

Dodge doesn't deal in subtelty anymore. They just went with the strategy of cramming the most ridiculous engines in their cars and, to be fair, it seems to be working for them. If you go to dodge.com their tagline is "Muscle Cars and Sports Cars". I have no idea why they still have the Grand Caravan on offer, but I guess if it sells, then why not?

they went with the roll of the way Pontiac would be today. Driving Excitement.. The Journey/Caravan still exist only because they are paid for platform's that can afford to be heavily discounted for Retail incentives and Fleets. Caravan/Journey protects Pacific's/Compass/Cherokee Residual value. preventing them for Fleet sales.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

There is no need for a company to have a wide range of product in its line up anymore. Despite Chrysler only having 2.5 cars (there are new 200's to be sold), They sell about the same or MORE units than all of Buick in the States. Chrysler is Up on Buick by 3.618 units. Buick has a full line up of cars (6).

"Better than Buick" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, though. So they're both not doing well... one is just doing slightly less terribly.

Also, you've been here more than long enough to know to not double post.

 

[Tornado]

There is no need for a company to have a wide range of product in its line up anymore. Despite Chrysler only having 2.5 cars (there are new 200's to be sold), They sell about the same or MORE units than all of Buick in the States. Chrysler is Up on Buick by 3.618 units. Buick has a full line up of cars (6).

Yes, and Buick's lineup is all fairly new and sells six times as many cars in a market that Chrysler has zero presence in at all.


Or was "sells slightly better in America than a brand that only survived being canned in 2008 due to export sales and being rebadged versions of European cars that had to be developed anyway" really your point?

 

[Joey D]

There is no need for a company to have a wide range of product in its line up anymore. Despite Chrysler only having 2.5 cars (there are new 200's to be sold), They sell about the same or MORE units than all of Buick in the States. Chrysler is Up on Buick by 3.618 units. Buick has a full line up of cars (6).

I assume you have a source on that.

In 2017, Buick sold 219,231vehicles in the US while Chrysler sold 188,545.

This year, Buick is at 93,245 whereas Chrysler is at 75,146.

I'm not sure how Chrysler is up on Buick by 3.6 units when Buick is outselling them over the past 18 months.

Buick Source: http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-data/buick/
Chrysler Source: http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-data/chrysler/

 

[psntomaz]

Yes, and Buick's lineup is all far newer and sells six times as many cars in a market that Chrysler has zero presence in at all.


Or did "sells slightly better in America than a brand that only survived being canned in 2008 due to export sales and being rebadged versions of European cars that had to be developed anyway" sound a bit better in your head?

I said in the "STATES". Chrysler should not be up on a brand (YTD as of march) with Brand New Product.

I assume you have a source on that.

In 2017, Buick sold 219,231vehicles in the US while Chrysler sold 188,545.

This year, Buick is at 93,245 whereas Chrysler is at 75,146.

I'm not sure how Chrysler is up on Buick by 3.6 units when Buick is outselling them over the past 18 months.

Buick Source: http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-data/buick/
Chrysler Source: http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-data/chrysler/

I used Goodcarbadcar as of March YTD
http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2012/10/buick-brand-sales-figures-usa-canada/ 56,804
http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2012/10/chrysler-brand-sales-figures-usa-canada/ 60,422

 

[Joey D]

I used Goodcarbadcar as of March YTD
http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2012/10/buick-brand-sales-figures-usa-canada/ 56,804
http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2012/10/chrysler-brand-sales-figures-usa-canada/ 60,422

That still doesn't account for being up by 3.6 units, it'd have to be at over 150,000 units in March to account for that.

And after comparing the numbers, they look incredibly close between the two sites, so I'm guessing they both get their info from the same place.

 

[Tornado]

I said in the "STATES". Chrysler should not be up on a brand (YTD as of march) with Brand New Product.

The obvious issue being it doesn't matter what you said to try and cherry pick Chrysler's success. That was the point. Buick wouldn't even exist in the United States in 2018 as a point of comparison if it wasn't selling well in China (last year to date nearly 7 times what Chrysler sells in the US) and if all of their models hadn't already been developed largely for the European market by a brand that GM just unloaded. It's not a chest beating achievement that Chrysler is maybe barely outselling a brand with a question mark for a future that only still exists when the development costs for its US range were amortized by another division that was already a hopeless perennial money loser anyway and because it is dramatically more popular outside of the country you're narrowly focusing on.


How did paring down their lineup to only things that are cheap to make and canceling everything else work out for Chrysler's old partner in crime Mitsubishi in the US?

 

[SlipZtrEm]

I used Goodcarbadcar as of March YTD
http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2012/10/buick-brand-sales-figures-usa-canada/ 56,804
http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2012/10/chrysler-brand-sales-figures-usa-canada/ 60,422

Are you actually comparing three months worth of Buick sales to four months worth of Chrysler?



Quality Pentastar propaganda work, there. 👍

 

[Beeblebrox237]

What happened to marques like Dodge producing 'normal' saloons and compacts like the Neon, Stratus, Monaco and Intrepid? The last not-a-sports-car I recall Dodge making is the Dart. And Chrysler, even if I admit not really seeing much differentiation between the two marques in the past, used to have conventional models like the Sebring, 300M and 300C. And I'm not saying those were good cars but they were at least a measure of a company with a wide model portfolio.

Ever since the fifth gen Mustang came out in 2005 the big three, Chrysler especially, seem to be reliant on their retraux muscle cars and on "horsepower war" special editions in the last five years in particular.

Some of it is that the US market is becoming very SUV-dominated, as evidenced by Ford's very public decision to effectively abandon the car market in favour of crossovers. However, a theory I have is that Mopar products simply don't sell to sensible people, so they don't sell many sensible cars. Outside of the Charger/300 they haven't made a saloon that was among the best in its class since the '90s, and they've had a terrible reputation for reliability since the '70s at least. Because of this their "normal" models don't sell, and I think the company has wrongly decided that there's no money to be made in those segments. Rather than fix their issues with quality and reliability they've survived through a combination of government funding, leeching off of other companies through various alliances and business deals, and a great marketing department. They haven't learned from their many past mistakes in part because they've gotten lucky. When Lee Iacocca ran the company he was able to make it very competitive after the company received a large amount of government funding around 1980, and he did it by building small cars Americans want to buy. After the 90s they strayed from that philosophy and went bankrupt, in part because they were putting out some truly awful cars (Dodge Avenger, for instance). I'd say they're a great marketing company that also happens to make a few cars, but until they learn to build cars that ordinary people actually want to buy then they're just going to keep having financial problems.

 

[Danoff]

Chrysler itself is not a well respected brand right now. Dodge gets a lot more respect. The company is called Fiat Chrysler, but there's no reason that they have to market vehicles directly as Chrysler vehicles, and they should probably just knock it off.

I guess the brands are: Fiat, Chrysler, Dodge, Alfa, Maserati, Jeep and Ram....

Chrysler is the dog in that group.

 

[Slash]

Imo one of the dumber decisions was making Ram it's own brand. It's always been a Dodge.

 

[Populuxe]

I'm just glad Chrysler isn't dead. In my lifetime, the US car/light truck industry has lost:

Studebaker
Checker
International
AMC/Rambler
Imperial
Plymouth
Oldsmobile
Pontiac
Mercury
Eagle
Saturn
Hummer
SRT

EDIT: Geo and Merkur

Every brand that gets shut down is like a blow to the gut. I want to see all the brands in FCA succeed, but it's never going to happen without a clear vision for each brand and what they represent. They don't have that right now.

 

[Turbo]

I'm just glad Chrysler isn't dead. In my lifetime, the US car/light truck industry has lost:

Studebaker
Checker
International
AMC/Rambler
Imperial
Plymouth
Oldsmobile
Pontiac
Mercury
Eagle
Saturn
Hummer
SRT

Every brand that gets shut down is like a blow to the gut. I want to see all the brands in FCA succeed, but it's never going to happen without a clear vision for each brand and what they represent. They don't have that right now.

SRT still exists.

 

[Populuxe]

SRT still exists.

It was only in existence as a separate brand for two years, 2013 and 2014. It's back to being a performance variant of different Chrysler and Dodge models.

 

[cjr3559]

I'm just glad Chrysler isn't dead. In my lifetime, the US car/light truck industry has lost:

Studebaker
Checker
International
AMC/Rambler
Imperial
Plymouth
Oldsmobile
Pontiac
Mercury
Eagle
Saturn
Hummer
SRT

Every brand that gets shut down is like a blow to the gut. I want to see all the brands in FCA succeed, but it's never going to happen without a clear vision for each brand and what they represent. They don't have that right now.

Willys (debatable)
Geo
Merkur

Makes come and go. Personally not crying over the demise of any of these brands. Time marches on. At least we have their memories and car shows to see them, but doubt I’ll ever pay money to see 2004 Oldsmobile.

 

[Populuxe]

Willys (debatable)
Geo
Merkur

Makes come and go. Personally not crying over the demise of any of these brands. Time marches on. At least we have their memories and car shows to see them, but doubt I’ll ever pay money to see 2004 Oldsmobile.

At one point, I thought I would never pay money to see a Datsun 610 at a car show. Now I would.

I forgot all about Geo and Merkur. Willys became Kaiser-Jeep became Jeep, so it never left, just changed names.

 

[20832]

Every brand that gets shut down is like a blow to the gut. I want to see all the brands in FCA succeed, but it's never going to happen without a clear vision for each brand and what they represent. They don't have that right now.

Not only that, but I feel like that FCA is the only brand not really interested or investing into newer technologies, whereas Chevrolet (in general) and Ford (in Europe, at least) starting to push PHEV and electric cars and even autonomous cars.

They're kinda behind the pack, and that could bite them in the backside, maybe not in the next 5, but certainly in the next 10 - 15 years.

 

[05XR8]

https://www.motoring.com.au/chrysler-300-srt-pacer-tribute-revealed-121674/

 

[Fastcarguy]

What I would do if I were FCA is turn Chrysler into the luxury name, like Lincoln is to Ford. Drop the minivans from the Chrysler name and keep it as the Dodge Grand Caravan and start producing more upmarket versions of things like the Durango and Cherokee. And just like Lincoln brought back the Continental name as a luxury car, maybe Chrysler could bring back another land yacht name like the Newport or Imperial and have it be a LWB limo/town car type vehicle.

 

[GTvsForza]

Or just bring back the PT Cruiser for the laughs

 

[GTV0819]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ws...ing-lawsuit-against-fiat-chrysler-11574270231

 

[CodeRedR51]

Special 300C available as a send-off for the 300. Unfortunately they didn't put the Hellcat engine in it...

2023 Chrysler 300C Is A Rowdy 6.4-liter HEMI V8 Farewell To An American Classic | Carscoops

The $55,000 Chrysler 300C is one of the last V8 American sedans on the market

www.carscoops.com

 

[-Fred-]

I didn't even know they still made the 300...

 

[Populuxe]

When the 300 goes, that just leave the Pacifica, and maybe the Airflow EV if they put it into production.

 

[Liquid]

Chrysler, dead?

No, Chrysler is dead.

 

[Keef]

When the 300 goes, that just leave the Pacifica, and maybe the Airflow EV if they put it into production.

The Airflow as shown in concept guise will not go into production. A production EV is in the works, but that's not it.

 

[c172fccc]

The Airflow as shown in concept guise will not go into production. A production EV is in the works, but that's not it.

Are you sure? The Airflow certainly looks production ready, don't think they would scrap a pretty much finished design.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Special 300C available as a send-off for the 300. Unfortunately they didn't put the Hellcat engine in it...

2023 Chrysler 300C Is A Rowdy 6.4-liter HEMI V8 Farewell To An American Classic | Carscoops

The $55,000 Chrysler 300C is one of the last V8 American sedans on the market

www.carscoops.com

The 300C needed a new interior a long time ago - moreso than it ever needed a ridiculous engine option. Even if they had just put mildly reworked version of the charger interior in it, it would have been a significant improvement.

 

[Keef]

Are you sure? The Airflow certainly looks production ready, don't think they would scrap a pretty much finished design.

That's what I thought but a buddy who works for Jeep in Chrysler's wind tunnel has told me repeatedly that that concept won't go into production.