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(Thanks to Doug Hetrick for sending this, the diesel notes, and the Windsor plant details to us). According to Ward's Alisa Priddle, the new LX large cars will start production on January 19, 2004, while the current front wheel drive LH series will be sold through the end of the 2004 model year. The new vehicles will be the Chrysler LX, LXi, and 300N, and the Intrepid, Concorde, and 300M nameplates will, in Chrysler "our past is junk" tradition, be retired. Two Dodge models will be produced, the All Sport SUV and, if money is there, the Dodge Charger, with four doors and a V8.
The LH series was brought out just ten years ago, in June 1992, revolutionizing the large car market with far superior handling and large, comfortable interiors that seemed out of proportion with the relatively trim exteriors. The LH models are still highly competitive, though getting prospective customers to actually test drive them has been difficult. Ms. Priddle expects a substantial cosmetic redesign of the series before their retirement, to keep sales up.
The CAW's contract with DaimlerChrysler provides for a new plant in Windsor, to replace the closing Pillette Road facility. The plant, designed from the ground up to be flexible, will use past Chrysler ideas such as having suppliers design and operate certain sections (as, for example, PPG handled the paint shop in Chrysler's Brazil Dakota factory). Suppliers may also end up owning a majority share in the plant to reduce DCX's investment. The plan depends both on DCX's "projections" and on the Canadian government's financial incentives. Some expect the M80 (see our concept vehicle page for details) to be built there.
Recently, when DCX announced it was thinking about bringing a diesel car to the US, many potential buyers thought they might mean a diesel minivan, PT Cruiser, or Jeep - all of which are sold in Europe. A recent followup announcement dashes these hopes; a DCX spokesman said that "Mercedes-Benz" would not import diesel-powered cars until clean diesel fuel is widely available in the US (around 2006), and sales of 5,000 vehicles could be assured. While it would probably be easy to sell 5,000 high-mileage diesel minivans, Libertys, or Cruisers, selling 5,000 diesel Mercedes would likely be harder - though some models do have the volume, diesels seem inconsistent with the Mercedes image (except perhaps in the M class).
Sport Compact Car magazine released the results of their tests of a Dodge (Neon) SRT-4. They found:
60-0 braking - 119 feet ("normal" is around 140-160)
0-60 - 5.8 sec
1/4 mile - 14.2 @ 99
250 wft/lbs @ 3000 rpm (at the wheels)
223 hp @ 5600 (at the wheels)
200' skidpad - .85g
700' slalom - 69mph
14 PSI maximum boost
Travis Kittlitz of Apex Performance Parts, who brought this to our attention, noted that "The hood scoop is stamped so that a clever enthusaist can make a cold air intake by cutting the hood and the airbox top."
DaimlerChrysler has, not surprisingly, chosen Georgia to assemble its next-generation Dodge commercial vans around 2004-2005. The Sprinter and Vito, made and designed by Mercedes in Germany, will be assembled in a nonunion Georgia plant from kits. Georgia won the deal with a bid of $320 million in state and local funding.
The real news here may not be where the factory is located - most observers knew it would end up in one of three Southern states - but what will be assembled there. Bill Cawthon and some others have suggested for months that the Vito would come to the United States, but this is the first confirmation that the medium-sized Mercedes passenger van will be built in the US.
Dodge full-size van production, already at a trickle, will halt in the summer of 2003. New product is promised for the plant which makes the "B-vans" for 2005, but DCX may be able to wriggle out of their deal with the CAW by pleading financial distress, if contract language is as loose as current reports suggest.
The Bush administration, joined by GM and DCX, is currently fighting a legal battle to invalidate state laws governing vehicle emissions. The White House is particularly opposed to California's zero-emissions vehicle standard, as DaimlerChrysler, Toyota, and Honda field-test hydrogen-powered vehicles that would qualify, and is now also fighting Massachusetts' attempt to use California standards. The Bush administration's position is that only the Federal government can regulate (or deregulate) pollution and gas mileage.
Chrysler, which has sold diesel-powered vehicles for many years in Europe along with the Cummins turbodiesel-equipped Ram pickups in the US, will start testing a diesel-powered car shortly, according to the Detroit News (thanks, Doug Hetrick).
Over a third of the cars in Europe are diesels, which are generally quiet, smoke-free, and efficient. Diesels tend to have far higher gas mileage than gasoline engines, without the extra cost of hybrid powertrains. Chrysler is likely to use a Mercedes diesel, but could also tap DCX-owned Detroit Diesel, which Chrysler used for its European Jeeps and minivans.
Chrysler, which has sold diesel-powered vehicles for many years in Europe along with the Cummins turbodiesel-equipped Ram pickups in the US, will start testing a diesel-powered car shortly, according to the Detroit News (thanks, Doug Hetrick).
Over a third of the cars in Europe are diesels, which are generally quiet, smoke-free, and efficient. Diesels tend to have far higher gas mileage than gasoline engines, without the extra cost of hybrid powertrains. Chrysler is likely to use a Mercedes diesel, but could also tap DCX-owned Detroit Diesel, which Chrysler used for its European Jeeps and minivans.
Chrysler has voluntarily recalled about 143,500 minivans to check for a fuel leak caused by a supplier error.
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