Rich
sed:
"The
Chrysler Group is getting slammed by auto critics including Consumer Reports for
its use of cheap materials especially regarding interior components (dashboards,
door inserts, and trim) stealing the unwanted title from GM. There is also
extreme cost cutting in an effort to return more profit per vehicle:
engine and transmission choices are almost non-existent. One can barely
find a manual transmission! This is just another give-away to the import
brands?where most of the ?under 21s? are already?of folks like myself who do not
want an automatic. I guess that I?ll see a new Camry SE sandwiched between
by two Dodge Ram trucks?
Forwardlook
content: my ?62 Le Baron is getting a new transmission in a few
weeks!
*************************************
You
are SO RIGHT.
Color me "bitter", but Detroit has been selling nothing but sh-t sandwiches for
over 30 years, and frankly, I'm not buying.
I
got me a Powerflite in the 56 Dodge, but the DeSoto is a custom-fit stick, my
Coronets - one is a stick, the other Torqueflite, and outside of the novelty of
pushbutton driving, who wants a sludge-o-matic ? Especially if you are
buying NEW ? Let's see, .... bar-of-soap styling, cramped interiors, no
chrome, no fins, plastic bumpers, hubcaps, and just about everything else
.... what is left to actually buy in a car today ?
I
bought a 2004 Civic coupe. You can actually NOT touch you head to the dash
from the front seat. It handles fantastic in the snow and nails 40 miles
to a currently $2.52-a-gallon of gas. I had to special order it with a
5-speed. (It is rated some 8 mpg less when equipped with auto). My
jellybean car mechanic friends tell me there is no better car made for trouble
free miles that may easily approach 300,000 before they need any real work
done. And even with its Dove Bar styling, it still has *some* sort of
design style that looks like it came from one mind / drawing board. OK, so it is
an "appliance" type vehicle. I have my FL cars for REAL fun. I just
don't want an ugly POS that gets worse mileage than my 1950's, 2 ton hunk of
real American iron !
My
most recent assignment required I get a truck. My 58 International 1-ton
is great for moving houses and uprighting derailed locomotives, but at 5 mpg and
being as conspicuous as a forest fire, something more practical was in
order. The answer ? A mid 80's Toyota 4x4. Still a small
truck, gets 25 mpg, and can haul a table saw to a mountain top and still not
stand out like a sore thumb on the street. And it has a stick ! I
"restored" it for $5000 and can expect many years of trouble free service at an
economy that I can live with, not to mention it looks like a truck and not a
shoe.
My
friend's son's new Durango gets 10 to 12 mpg and has all the good looks
of a football with Down's Syndrome. As long as Chryselr and
everyone else wants to pass of pure sh-t as "exciting cars", they can all go to
hell as far as I care. I'll check out from Hotel Earth about 2040 if I
live to be 85. Between a domestic comsumerism based on Paris Hilton and
celphone ringtone options and a foreign policy / outlook based on dealing with
radical fundamentalists, I am thinking the America I grew up in won't be
anything I'm going to recognize anyway, so who gives a rip if Chrysler is around
making sh-t sandwiches and trying to pass them off as cars ? FL guys
discussing the "future" of Mopars is about as relevant to exciting cars as
ring tone options are to my dog.
Sewing machine engines, 12 mpg, and the continuous refinement of the egg as a
styling theme are going to drill the US auto industry straight into the
ground. Time for a change of strategic planning. That's what
my Sergeant would say.
Brent
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