[Dave Z]

This boils down to the fact they haven't made a good case with the Hurricane. Had they done that, nobody would care if the Hemi went away. Buyers would look forward and embrace the newer technology and not waste their time hanging on to technology that is a quarter of a century old. Their failures have caused them to resurrect the Hemi as a bandaid.

There would still be people who insist that only a V8 matters.
Like people who chose slow Ford V8s over the quicker Plymouths.

 

[Dave Z]

I fully agree with Geoff.
I think their global virtual team structure gets in the way.
I also think there's a place for old fashioned cheap simple transport, which they seem to have prematurely ceded to Chinese and South Korean automakers (and of course Toyota). I remember the Neon clobbering the invincible Japanese and GM alike when it showed up, not just outperforming everyone (SCCA stock car racing is the proof) but also making thousands per car in profits, even after the head gaskets and exhaust donuts - cheapened allegedly by Bob Eaton himself - were fixed. (And for the 1998s, which did not have these problems, the profits were immense.) At that point American automakers were paying $3,000 to $5,000 per car for each compact they sold, and were subsidizing them because they wanted entry level buyers.
Marchionne decided entry level buyers don't matter, and that led to the current increasingly irrelevant product lines - great for that small niche that still slavers after Hemis, but how long will that last as 0-60 in 3 seconds becomes commonplace?

 

[Dave Z]

That's a regular challenge. As you say, if you don't face that challenge, you end up slowly giving ground until there's no ground to give.