Leaked memo: "Outrage" within Chrysler over Sebring, Nitro

Chrysler's been having A LOT of problems for a while now with quality - just look at the Intrepid and you'll see just how bad it got.

The problem with the merger between Daimler-Benz and Chrylser is the simple fact that Daimler-Benz didn't want to invest very much time and effort into ensuring the quality of the Chrysler vehicles. Now, hopefully, Chrysler may actually stand a chance, but I'm still not going to go back to them. I've made up my mind to stay loyal to Toyota - never again will I make the mistake of buying anything else.

 

Historically, Chrysler is known for taking chances. Vehicles like the 1957 'Forward Look' cars, sixties' A-body compacts, 1975 Cordoba, 1981 K-cars, and 1983 minivan, have all been last minute hits that brought Chrysler back from the brink time and again.

It's not exactly something they want to do, either. The term 'crisis management' has been synonymous with Chrysler for decades. Fortunately, they've been quite lucky with many of the products they've come out with using this business practice, some of the most recent being the PT Cruiser, 300, and Wrangler Unlimited. The Caliber (which looks like an HO-scale Pontiac Aztek) seems to be doing okay in the marketplace, as well.

With that said, Chrysler has had their share of blunders, too. The original Airflow (which was actually just ahead of its time), bizarre early sixties' full-size styling flubs, and the 1976 Aspen/Volare (the disasterous replacement for the stalwart Valiant) which, along with horrendous quality of all its products, very nearly sank Chrysler in the seventies.

The Nitro and Sebring (either sedan or convertible) look like a couple of bombs, to me, too. But then, I've never liked the high-beltline, narrow side-window styling of most new vehicles (something Toyota has managed to stay away from), regardless, and the slammed-roof styling of the new 300 turned out to be a hit, so maybe the Nitro and Sebring will do okay.

But I'm sure not going to buy either one.

 

I personally have never been a fan of circa 1950s design cues. Their marketing head cheese says "attitude".

I say obese and claustrophobic

 

It's funny; in the 50's they didn't use "design cues from the 1890's," did they?

We've been discussing this a lot recently, about the prevalence of the 'retro' movement, why it lingers, and where design (not just automotive) might go from here...

I mean, one of these days we'll have strip-mined every retro design cue from the entire history of manufactured objects...then what?

---

I've caught a glimpse of one or two of those Chryslers with the overstyled hood...it's amazing how shaping a piece of metal in a certain way can make it look so cheap.

 

The styling of late fifties Chrysler products was okay, mainly when compared with what GM and Ford came out with from 1958 on. The problem was that the 1957 'Forward Look' Chryslers were actually 'too' successful in the marketplace. Chrysler made the monumental error of spitting out as many of the Forward Look cars as they could with absolutely no consideration for quality control. Consequently, fifties' Forward Look cars gave Chrysler a horrendous build and reliability reputation which took years to overcome. In desperation, this is when Chrysler came out with the original '5 year/50,000 mile' warranty.

Then, Chrysler's newly styled 1961 line-up was a dismal failure, the worst being the 1961 Plymouth. While the rear-end styling was okay (after a four years, Chrysler had finally gotten rid of tailfins), the front end of that car looked like something out of a Godzilla movie.

In a panic, Chrysler did a crash-restyling to come out with a more palatable 1962 line-up, but this costly foul-up cost Chrysler dearly in that it caused their new model styling to be several years behind Ford and GM for many years to follow.

 

Wasn't it Chrysler that started putting fake wood stickers on station wagons during the 70's and 80's to make them look more like Woodies?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swanny1172 @ Jun 13 2007, 08:25 PM) [snapback]461271[/snapback]</div>

I think that was all three automakers. When I grew up, my family had a 1970 Ford LTD Country Squire station wagon that had the wood and white scheme. A pretty horrible car, my dad sold it in 1978 for $850 and bought a 1975 Olds Delta 88, a much nicer car in every way.

Dave

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swanny1172 @ Jun 13 2007, 09:25 PM) [snapback]461271[/snapback]</div>

Fake wood station wagons were around long before the '70's. Automakers started using the fake stuff right around WWII and the last "real" wood station wagons were made in the early '50's. Supposedly the reason they are so hard to find now was that surfers bought them up for next to nothing in the 50's and '60's and drove them until they fell apart.

 

Chrysler has always been boom or bust. When I was a kid I had a strong attraction to Barracudas, Chargers, and Road Runners. They just had a look I fell in love with.

My Dad always said Plymouths were "ladies cars" but he was born in 1925 and his opinion was based on that perception.

I think the Nitro was a big mistake and the jury is out on the Sebring redesign. I have a '99 Sebring and have never really liked it due to poor economy, poor performance, questionable electrical system, a fuel pump replacement, a convertible top replacement, a lot of shakes and rattles, and especially the crappy brakes and poor headlight performace despite upgrading the system a year back.

That said, I am hoping to purchase a Challenger probably in the second or maybe third year of production to satisfy my lifelong desire to own a mopar true muscle car.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tnthub @ Jun 14 2007, 08:17 AM) [snapback]461460[/snapback]</div>

Hopefully, by the second or third year of production, Chrysler will start making more mundane, less expensive versions. The last thing I read was that there aren't going to be any low-to-mid level models of the Challenger - they're all going to be high-end, loaded with amenities and really expensive (at least initially).

It sounds like the new Challenger is going to marketed not so much as a competitor for the Mustang as a slightly cheaper, less powerful, more luxurious Viper.

 

When I first saw these cars I was depressed that anyone would buy them.

I find my faith in humanity somewhat restored.

 

Intimidating. Radical. Brash. Not words you’d normally associate with a mid-size SUV, until now, introducing the all new 2007 Dodge Nitro.

:lol:

Found on the Dodge.ca page after a Google search.

 

If I had to choose a preferred car body style era, it would be the
angular "star wars" look in the eighties. Like my old '89 Trooper,
before they started rounding off all the corners.
.
But while it may work fine in the vacuum of space, that shaping isn't
particularly good for airflow...
.
Oh, and WRT high-beltline gangsta-mobiles, the new Camry [hybrid or
not] is gettin' close. It felt very big and fat to me when I test
drove it last year, too.
.
This is especially amusing because while out tooling around town on
a bicycle about an hour ago I happened across a hot-rod gathering
that's apparently a weekly enthusiast thing. Talk about squashed
roofs...
.
_H*

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(rudiger @ Jun 13 2007, 08:18 PM) [snapback]461266[/snapback]</div>

Credit Virgil Exener for this; he's the guy who takes the blame for the '61's.

By the mid-60's, the guy who penned Ford's iconic slab sided '61 Continental had moved to Chrysler (can't remember his name at the moment)...he was a bit of a one-trick pony, design-wise, but his artistic sensibility is everywhere on the clean and sharp edged '65 Imperial/other full-size Chrysler products; he also influenced some of the great Chrylser styling which would emerge later that decade.

Geez, what *was* his name...?!?

In the 50's, Chrylser was supposedly 'the thinking man's' car company, with a focus on engineering and rational design. I think the original hemi (wasn't that the 331? I can't recall) had a higer specific power output than any other American production engine; it took adding expensive and temperamental fuel injection to GM's small block V8 to beat it.

They also had excellent automatic transmissions, which weren't as prone to overheating as some others of the day, and I believe Chrysler also offered three forward speeds, when GM still had only two. And they used torsion bars instead of coil or leaf springs, which is kind of cool for a bunch of reasons.

But, yeh, those freestanding headlights and the concave front end on the early 60's Chyrslers really were the wrong things at the wrong time. I can't imagine that they *ever* looked good.

 

I don't know who the yahoo is at Chrysler who makes the final decision to produce a gawdawful POS like the Nitro. That is the most butt ugly car that they have and that's saying something. Virtually their entire lineup is either ugly or bland and, thus, utterly forgettable. The first time I saw a Nitro I was like "you are one ugly m*********er" How about their we-don't-give-one-rat's-beehind-about-aerodynamics Commander? Yuck. The 300? Ugh. Charger? Blech. What the heck is wrong with Chrysler anyway, don't they want anyone to buy their cars? Sheesh.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hobbit @ Jun 14 2007, 06:04 PM) [snapback]461938[/snapback]</div>

Just saw the new Scion Xb on the street; looks like the old Xb with a chopped roof...