Fiat has put a hit out on Chrysler. Kissed both cheeks – then one right on the lips.
Tonight, you sleep with the fishes.
Well, maybe not tonight.
But about three years from now.
2020.
It will be that long – at least – until Fiat commits any cash to a major redesign of Chrysler’s aging rear-drive 300 sedan.
Two “sources” within the Italian automotive combine told the trade publication Automotive News this evil news – sotto voce – last week.
See here.
Which means the same evil news for Dodge’s also aging Charger sedan and Challenger coupe.
Which is really bad news, because all share a common “platform” – the industry-speak term for a chassis/frame. All three received their last major update back in 2011 – already six years in the rearview. By 2020, they will have been basically the same car for nearly 10 years.
Which means, they probably aren’t going to be updated. Which means it is likely they are going to be cancelled.
No car company leaves a car to rot on the vine like this unless they’ve already decided there is no future for that car.
In which case, there appears to be no future for Chrysler.
As of 2017, it has just two models to offer buyers and only of them – the Pacifica minivan – is remotely new. The 200 sedan has already been “hit” – cancelled prematurely after less than three years on the market (and despite selling well; see here for more about that).
Which leaves the 300.
It’s a death sentence for Chrysler.
Almost nothing to sell – and what they have to sell is nothing new. Not next year. Not the year after that. Or the next year.
By which time, you should be able to get a really good deal on a “new” 2018 Chrysler 300 or Dodge Charger or Challenger.
But why?
These are not unpopular cars. Of course, the same was true of the 200. But the 300 and Charger and Challenger are the only cars still available with rear-wheel-drive and V8 power at a price point average Americans can afford.
And there you have your answer.
It’s not Fiat that’s putting the cement shoes on Chrysler.
It’s Uncle.
The “contract” being the federal government’s Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) mandates.
These are set to go up to a demented 50-plus MPG – unless Trump intervenes – by model year 2025. And the only way V8 (and V6) powered large sedans and coupes like the 300, Charger and Challenger are going to come within tire iron-throwing distance of 50-something MPG is by riding on a flatbed.
One powered by a Prius.
It’s not surprising that Fiat – a predominantly European cartel that specializes in tiny, high-economy cars, isn’t going to commit the funds to extend the production run of big, not-so-economical cars which will drag its overall CAFE numbers down like seawater did the Titanic. Plus they will be a hard sell to average Americans on account of the “gas guzzer” fines EPA will hit the company with, which will be tacked onto the sticker price of the offending vehicles. Which means they’d sell fewer.
This will cost Fiat money.
Which matters to a car company.
Remember: It’s FiatChrysler. The money comes from Italy, ultimately – not Detroit.
So – unless the fuel economy fatwas are repealed … it is last call.
You have maybe three years to buy one of the last American cars.
Which Fiat never had much enthusiasm for, regardless.
Though the Italians own the company, the 300/Charger/Challenger predate the capo regime. Fiat inherited them – like the Axis powers inherited the French fleet after the surrender at Compiegne. Chrysler was desperate – having been sucked dry of cash by ex-partner Mercedes-Benz. Fiat saw an opportunity to gain access – not to the fleet – but to Chrysler’s dealer network.
The 300/Charger/Challenger were war booty, so to speak.
The Italian overlords were glad to rake in the coin for as long as these cars sold well. But committing coin to updating them when there exists the real likelihood of it costing them more coin than they’d gain… well… you see the problem.
The rear-drive platform on which these big handsome lugs are built is the kind of platform most American cars used to be built on. But which almost none are built on any longer, except for a handful of high-dollar units like Cadillacs (and those are now almost entirely V8-free).
Because of CAFE. 
Everything else that’s affordable (because CAFE-compliant or at least friendly) is front-wheel-drive and- typically – powered by a small, turbocharged four cylinder engine.
The people who can still afford to spend $40,000 and more will still be able to buy rear-drive cars (and for another $10k or so, a rear-drive car with a V8). These cars will be built in small batches by prestige-brand manufacturers (Benz, BMW, etc.) who don’t have to sweat CAFE because their customers don’t sweat the MSRP.
But Chrysler is an odd duck. It is the only brand selling rear-drive (and V8s) in large numbers – and for a sum still small enough to be within financing range of an average person with an OK job.
So long as that remains true – the part about being within financing range – average Americans will continue to buy cars like the 300, the Charger and Challenger. But when CAFE compliance costs (and gas guzzler taxes) push the sticker up to par with the prestige-branded stuff, it’s not going to work.
Fiat realizes this.
It’s why the public announcement (by proxy and off-record but nonetheless done very deliberately) that nothing much will be done to update any of these cars before at least 2020.
At which time they will likely be retired, for good.
It’s nothing personal.
It’s just business.
It’s racist – what will the NigNogs do without the 300, and all the aftermarket bolt-on’s to make them look like Bentley’s.
The 200 is the best overall ragtop on the market. It actually has enough leg room in the rear seat for someone of average height to sit in comfort and the trunk has more room with the top down than the mustang has with the top up. With the top up, the trunk is reminiscent of the cavernous spaces from the 1060’s. It’s only real downside is fuel mileage, even with the four banger, cause it’s also a heavy car n’ shit (which means that it is safer in a wreck).
The Chrysler 200 convertible is no longer sold. It died with the Intro of the current all new platform two years ago. The 200 convertible was a piece of Shit, even when new.
And, there’s no use comparing a FWD car with a RWD Mustang.
Two different animals.
Even the Current car is scheduled to be cancelled shortly, as Chrysler plans to stop producing and engineering it’s own passenger cars, in order to concentrate on higher margin SUVs and Crossovers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_200#Discontinuation
Oh bullshit. Sure, CAFE mandates will eventually kill off the RWD V-8 for the masses but the American consumer will do it far faster. The Chrysler LX platform (300, Charger, etc.) replaced the FWD Chrysler LS platform (Intrepid) which sold FAR better back in the 1990’s and early 2000’s than the Charger and 300 ever did. Never mind that the RWD Chrysler’s, when brand spanking new, were still demolished in sales by their FWD competition from Ford and GM, not to mention Toyota & Honda. People don’t want the rear drive tanks of the 1980’s and prior – at least not in great #’s and Fiat is looking at the bottom line here in letting the LX platform die off. Oh, and those cars are assembled in Brampton Ontario. Nothing against the Canucks but they aren’t “Imported from Detroit.”
If the government wants people to use less gas, they should just raise the gas tax. Democrats always find the most convoluted ways to enact their social engineering – like CAFE standards.
Iska – seriously, get fucked (and I like you).
Anyone who proposes taxes on any damn thing gets a big “go fuck yourself”from me.
Let the market sort it out. Govt has no business engineering the price of any damn thing, or of engineering how much or how little of anything is consumed. That is none of their fucking business.
As someone who lives in a place where snow or ice cover the roads often during the winter, I’m surprised RWD cars still exist. I never see one in my neck of the woods. Maybe I should look closer at the ditches in the wintertime.
With that being said, I agree with Aquapura. Fiat is likely making a business decision. With the already small market for Chrysler cars shrinking further, pouring more money down that toilet to redesign the Chrysler cars seems like it would be an incredibly poor business decision.
Who gives a shit anyway? The 300/Charger/Challenger are all made in Canada. Nothing to do with the US. With Messican engines, I believe.
Sad day in automotive history when Fiat owns Chrysler. I remember when if you were driving a Chrysler you had a real “automobile”, heavy as a truck but with a hemi engine; not so fast off the line but with a top-end that would break the 120 mph speedo. Fiat on the other hand has the image of either belching black smoke due to premature ring/cylinder wear, or visualized immobile on the side of the road (they used to break….a lot).
Fiat= Fix it again Tony
The 1976 Pontiac Trans Am was what a coach at my high school drove. It looked good, didn’t eat all that much $0.25 / gallon gas, and was a dream to drive. I only got one ride in his when he was feeling generous, but that was enough. When I could graduate from college and afford one, a Trans Am was what I was going to get.
Except just after college I was married, and a Trans Am was not what was on her mind – rent and babies and insurance and savings and everything else was. And now that my kids are grown and most of my necessities are eating a little less of my (intermittent, not dependable) paychecks –
Trans Ams aren’t made anymore
Pontiac itself is gone
Muscle cars are history
The Big 3 are mostly foreigners, incompetents and minivans
Government runs the car business as a social engineering experiment
GO DONALD TRUMP. MAGA!