Four cylinder cars are hot - Chrysler’s are not
The hottest type of car now seems to be the small four-cylinder sedan; Neons have tripled in value since the spring, and don’t even ask about Metros. Ford and Toyota are both converting truck factory space to build small cars in the United States, and Minis are flying off the lots as soon as they come in.
So what about the Chrysler candidates?
The Sebring and Avenger, which both have four cylinder engines as standard equipment, with decent gas mileage, are both down by over 40% from August 2007. The PT Cruiser, which is only available with four cylinders, is down 65%, albeit partly because of the cheap seats and partly because we all know it’s going away soon. The new triplets, though, which replaced the Neon - the newly hot again Neon, the Neon that you can barely find used, the Neon that’s starting at $3,000 in so-so condition on the used car lots - the new triplets are all down in sales.
Compass and Patriot are down 56% and 21%, respectively, but one can argue that we all knew about the upcoming interior redesign and most people held off. (Of course the average person on the street not only doesn’t know about the redesign, but doesn’t know what the Patriot is, much less the Compass. Autoblog readers already know that being non-Wrangler Jeeps, they’re worthless.)
The Caliber was not really rumored to have any changes, and it has a variety of engines that enable it to get quite respectable mileage. The result: down 56%.
There was bright news for Chrysler. Squad sales no doubt propped up Charger, which came in with an increase in sales, neatly matching Avenger and Sebring combined (and coming close to the Compass/Caliber/Patriot triplets). Magnum’s gone, but Minivans are up, with Caravan holding roughly steady and Town & Country continuing its climb - now beating the Caravan in sales, and hopefully beating the Japanese minis, too. Journey checked in with a few more sales than the “dying” PT, and between the two of them, Toluca is running pretty well. The Ram was off 23%, which means it’s gaining against the F-series Fords. Though Dodge is probably including chassis cabs in there, that’s a niche business - considering that even with the slump, nearly 25,000 Rams moved last month. (In case you’re wondering, Ram outsold the entire Chrysler brand; and Ram outsold the entire Jeep brand.)
That’s the good news. Across the board, other models are doing terribly poorly. The “less awful” sales spots were reserved for the Patriot, Wrangler, and Liberty - all Jeeps, you may have noticed - though Grand Cherokee, Commander, and Compass were clobbered. The 300 plunged by over 5,000 units, or 59%, not nearly compensated for by the Challenger’s 2,077 sales.
Here are Dodge’s top sellers:
#1. Ram. 24,974 units… after a 23% fall.
#2. Town & Country. 10,182 units, up 15%!
#3. Grand Caravan. 9,422 units, down 1%.
#4. Charger. 8,102 units, up 3%.
#5. Wrangler. 6,469 sales, down 32%.
Comments: Yes, Charger is selling well - a big gas-guzzling sedan (admittedly it doesn’t guzzle as badly as many competitors of similar size or power) near the end of its model run.
Wrangler includes the Unlimited model, but again, it’s one of the worst-mileage vehicles in the lineup - albeit similar in mileage to similar 4WD vehicles like the Toyota FJ Cruiser.
I am waiting for Bill Cawthon’s analysis over on the news page.