[Marantzer]

That is your opinion. Did you ever own one?

No, but rode in many and my father, the CHP officer drove one, along with his buddies. They were rolling bags of puke.

 

[Marantzer]

FWIW, the R bodies were, according to (retired officer)Curtis Redgap, as described on allpar, quality disasters but among the best handling, nicest riding police cars. The Diplomat was tougher but not as nice, or so he said - and the same in that book about police cars. I would guess most of the problems were in 1979, and 1980-81 series were just fine.

They were indeed decent handling and riding cruisers, but the quality and problems created so much angst that there was just pure disgust with them. The 81s were not too bad but by then the damage was done.

The Diplomats were not perfect (front end problems drove shops crazy) but they were so much better by comparison that they seemed golden. In 82 the CHP bought the first SSP Mustangs. The biggest problems with them were the front seats kept braking because of big strong officers jumping in and out of them. Clutch abuse was the next problem. But they were light and fast (for the time) and the officers loved them.....as they came to love the Diplomats.

 

[valiant67]

I would love to see them. Like you have pointed out before, ALL of the cop cars of the time were slow. Slow was not the problem, lack of quality was.

I was a young car nut and my dad arranged for me to watch the 1980 tests at McClellan AFB. The testing officers knew they were slow but it was just the way it was. By late in the year after thousands of seat hours they started to despise the St Regis'. (I was there to hear how much CHP officers hated them, no exaggeration) They simply did not hold up. Many people started making noises about corruption at the state buying practices. Not a lot came of it, since the Diplomats were so much better.

There were a lot of fine Mopar police cars in the 60s, 70s and 80s. The R bodies simply were not in the same class.

Perhaps it’s time to read the Ed Sanow and John Bella books (1979-1984 and 1956-1978) on Mopar police cars.
Plus I’ve owned a 1979 St Regis and two 1980 Gran Fury police cars, plus a civilian 1979 Newport and 1981 New Yorker. I don’t think there are many people that owned an R body of every year and one of every model. I kinda know my way around them.

 

[joewho]

Stellantis promising 3 shifts to appease the Canadian gov who gave them billions to retool Windsor & Brampton. But could they also be doing it to help ease the pain if & when they close Brampton

 

[valiant67]

I have to think there will be more demand. Currently EVs are a niche market and so are 2 doors. A gas powered 4 door should sell a lot more.

 

[Dave Z]

Stellantis promising 3 shifts to appease the Canadian gov who gave them billions to retool Windsor & Brampton. But could they also be doing it to help ease the pain if & when they close Brampton

I don't see it as political. The Canadian government has probably already written Brampton and the battery factory off. They won't blame Stellantis. Likewise, Stellantis would not add an expensive third shift just for political ease.

 

[Adventurer55]

I don't see it as political. The Canadian government has probably already written Brampton and the battery factory off. They won't blame Stellantis. Likewise, Stellantis would not add an expensive third shift just for political ease.

Maybe Brampton will get mothballed like the one plant at St. Louis was. They ended up opening it back up after new product was allowed.

 

[mentalicca]

Looking at broad scope competitor cars (Model S, EQS, Lucid, etc), the market is pretty small for a full size 4 door sedan EV. Dodge getting 10k sales per year should be considering a success. Tesla had one outlier year in 2022, otherwise most years none of the manufacturers had big sales numbers in the large sedan segment.

But therein lies the problem, 10k units is not going to justify the cost of the car. Points even more to the aggressive stupidity and failure of the launch. And to be clear, I don't think the car is a failure, just the launch. The 4 door should have come weeks after the 2 door. And the Sixpack weeks after that. Soft launch fine, but they needed be put out there.

With an SXT or GT gas variant (40k msrp) I could see this being a 60-80k sales per year vehicle. As it stands, until the 4 doors get here, it is a highly niche vehicle.

 

[Dave Z]

Keep in mind it should collect most of the sales that would have gone to the 300 and Challenger, too, or that was their hope. Except the Challenger was smaller, and still quite large for its class. And the Wagoneer S is really competition for the 300 buyers.

 

[Adventurer55]

I think a read is very informative about the split of Kraft Heinz. They sound alot like Stellantis here. Being reactive instead of proactive. They had employees that informed management on the future of their products and how to change them and make them more appealing to customers. What did the overpaid people do? Ignored all of the advice. Most likely because they thought knew more and were very superior to their underlings. Analysts are predicting that they won't survive. Sadly, if they don't, all their golden parachutes will be in place, so most top executives, will never have to work again.

 

[Dave Z]

I think a read is very informative about the split of Kraft Heinz. They sound alot like Stellantis here. Being reactive instead of proactive. They had employees that informed management on the future of their products and how to change them and make them more appealing to customers. What did the overpaid people do? Ignored all of the advice. Most likely because they thought knew more and were very superior to their underlings. Analysts are predicting that they won't survive. Sadly, if they don't, all their golden parachutes will be in place, so most top executives, will never have to work again.

The attitude of “the wrong leaders” is often surprisingly class conscious, and condescending to everyone in the non-priviledged group. I've seen it too many times, at too many companies. You shouldn't need to hire a consultant to act on what everyone knows.

 

[mentalicca]

Keep in mind it should collect most of the sales that would have gone to the 300 and Challenger, too, or that was their hope. Except the Challenger was smaller, and still quite large for its class. And the Wagoneer S is really competition for the 300 buyers.

While the 300 suffered here and there being a reskin of the Charger, especially at the end they really did a solid job differentiating, given what they were working with. As we both know, that was also the benefit, part of the success of the Charger from 2006-2023 was that it was a shared platform with 300, Challenger, and Magnum (a vehicle, like the older Pacifica, that was just a little early and would have been a greater success with the market shift to CUVs). Between the 3 cars they were selling ~200k units per year after the 2015 refresh. Greed took over on that though, and sales started tanking in 2018/2019.

 

[Dave Z]

They were supposed to get a new front suspension around 2018-19, some people were still waiting for it. The electronics issues with the 2015s put some off.

 

[mentalicca]

They were supposed to get a new front suspension around 2018-19, some people were still waiting for it. The electronics issues with the 2015s put some off.

2018 is also felt like when they started the aggressive margin chasing and pausing any sort of new development. Everything became sticker packages and derivative development. If it's not a $90k hellcat, we won't invest in it, seemed to be the motto.

 

[Dave Z]

The success of the Hellcat strategy carried the seeds of failure... especially since you can only go so far with "more power."