Update: Chrysler Buisness plan reveals upcoming Challenger Refresh for 2011

[1bad65]

Syr, you do realize one of the biggest problems the Challenger faces when competing with the Mustang and Camaro is price, right? And you want to increase that?? Huge mistake. The SRT starts at $43,655 already. You can get a Vette for under $5k more. No one is going to pay Vette prices for a car the Camaro outperforms. It's economic suicide.

[returnofcc]

Originally Posted by 1bad65

Syr, you do realize one of the biggest problems the Challenger faces when competing with the Mustang and Camaro is price, right? And you want to increase that?? Huge mistake. The SRT starts at $43,655 already. You can get a Vette for under $5k more. No one is going to pay Vette prices for a car the Camaro already outperforms. It's economic suicide.

Yes, exactly, the car he is describing is an overpriced genesis or even more overpriced Taurus SHO, both of which would be failures.

[returnofcc]

Originally Posted by KoTToN

lol, yea those ol 426 hemis were total crap, no one would dare think owning one was prestigious. Dont even mention those average joe viper ACR's...

I think you need one of these

[returnofcc]

Originally Posted by syr74

Actually, I think you might have paid too much attention to Zeus' response to my post and not enough to my post. That 50-55k price you mention was his estimate of what it would cost to produce and sell such a car, not mine. I never said anything about a 55k Challenger, I said that they should price the Chally for Vette/GT500 money which would be roughly mid forties....and since the GT500 was commanding prices above sticker until relatively recently I would argue that people will absolutely pay 45-50k for a Grand Tourer that is good enough to make them actually want to buy the car.

As for the Taurus SHO, while I was a skeptic myself when that car was introduced you might want to revisit your thoughts on what will or wont sell, I know I had to. The Taurus is selling about twice as many units per month as the G8 did in it's best ever sales month, and according to Ford the bulk of that demand is for the highest end offerings like loaded SEL models and the SHO. In other words, Taurus is meeting Ford's expectations and then some and a notable portion of the cars making that happen are priced in that 40k dollar range you surmise wont work.

I'm sorry, but that is impossible to do. A grand touring challenger with a pdk would cost at least 50k. And nobody would pay 50k, except for maybe your few diehard challenger fans. As for the SHO, look at what they tried to do. They tried to make a high performance sedan, like the 300CSRT8. They failed miserably. The brakes on the car are fail, as many magazine have noted. The engine runs a quarter mile in the high 13's, low 14's, something my lightly modded gti could easily do. The car is way too heavy and is easily outhandled by a base g37. They managed to make a car that is remarkably similar to the genesis, except that it is even more expensive, thus it fails to beat the competition. I don't think it will have good sales, that might be just the SHO faithful, just wait a few months...

[KoTToN]

Originally Posted by returnofcc

I think you need one of these

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...acr/index.html

guess you missed the whole viper acr part of my post, dont worry though it only took up half of the two sentence post.

[returnofcc]

Originally Posted by KoTToN

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...acr/index.html

guess you missed the whole viper acr part of my post, dont worry though it only took up half of the one sentence post.

Then maybe from next time you should only write about things that are relevant to the topic at hand

[KoTToN]

I'm sorry I thought someone said something about dodge never having any prestige. So i went on to post two huge prestigious products that dodge has produced, one from the past one from this year.

Ill try to stay on topic next time

[MrIcky]

People would pay that price if the value is there, but you'd be appealing to a smaller base because they sell over 7000 chargers now. So I'd think you'd need to fix the midsize car first before you can even talk about upscaling the charger. I like the charger well enough, but all of Dodge's entries below the charger seem very unappealing to me. I think Dodge sells a lot of 25k chargers because their 22k stratuses or whatever they are have to be marked down to 16k to move them.

[returnofcc]

Originally Posted by KoTToN

I'm sorry I thought someone said something about dodge never having any prestige. So i went on to post two huge prestigious products that dodge has produced, one from the past one from this year.

Ill try to stay on topic next time

OMG! Dodge has produced TWO prestigious products in the last 50 years? This is too much, they are the greatest automaker in the world, I would much rather have a dodge than a cadillac, bmw, mercedes, audi, lexus sports car that is more sporty, better built, and more prestigious
/sarcasm

[KoTToN]

so now dodge does have prestige? I cant keep up with all this flip flopping of statements, are you prehaps related to a certain senator kerry?

[returnofcc]

Originally Posted by KoTToN

so now dodge does have prestige? I cant keep up with all this flip flopping of statements, are you prehaps related to a certain senator kerry?

You still haven't explained why a GT Challenger would be better than the aforementioned cars. Please contribute to this thread.

[KoTToN]

please direct me to the post where i made such a claim

edit: after searching the thread no one ever made such a claim so im not sure where that came from

[Inferno Orange 2SS-RS]

Thought it was the refreshed 2010 Challenger, then I read the caption.

Originally Posted by Zeus

Their Charger hit's the Sedan market... if they were to make ANOTHER coupe to go along with the Challenger (judging by the attention it has received through concepts) it'd be the Cuda.




How bout the Fiat 500 Scuderia...

[syr74]

Originally Posted by 1bad65

Syr, you do realize one of the biggest problems the Challenger faces when competing with the Mustang and Camaro is price, right? And you want to increase that?? Huge mistake. The SRT starts at $43,655 already. You can get a Vette for under $5k more. No one is going to pay Vette prices for a car the Camaro outperforms. It's economic suicide.

Who said anything about a car the Vette outperforms? You're too hung up on the existing SRT8 Challenger, that isn't the car that I was addressing. I said that they should make the upcoming 6.4L SRT V8 engine standard....and right now that looks to be a nearly 500hp mill...and throw the Porsche PDK, improved suspension, and plusher interior in and price it at GT500/Corvette money looking to sell Corvette volume which frankly isn't too far off of what we have now.

Considering the fact that the GT500 already plays in that price range with somewhat simpler goodies and a less plush interior there is no reason to think such a setup wouldn't work. As for the argument that the problem with the Challenger is that it is too expensive already I would tend to agree, it is too expensive to compete directly with Mustang and Camaro. But then, my entire argument is that trying to make a large car like the Challenger compete with Mustang and Camaro was a no win situation from the outset. Challenger needs a different niche if it is to survive.

Originally Posted by returnofcc

I'm sorry, but that is impossible to do. A grand touring challenger with a pdk would cost at least 50k.

If you're going to seriously argue that it would cost that much then you are going to have to tell me why. I worked in the industry for some time and I already told you why, in my experience, the price wouldn't need to be anything like that high. If you think otherwise make your case.

Originally Posted by returnofcc

As for the SHO, look at what they tried to do. They tried to make a high performance sedan, like the 300CSRT8. They failed miserably. The brakes on the car are fail, as many magazine have noted. The engine runs a quarter mile in the high 13's, low 14's, something my lightly modded gti could easily do. The car is way too heavy and is easily outhandled by a base g37. They managed to make a car that is remarkably similar to the genesis, except that it is even more expensive, thus it fails to beat the competition. I don't think it will have good sales, that might be just the SHO faithful, just wait a few months...

I think the problem here is that you keep looking at things from the perspective of a strict, performance enthusiast and most consumers cannot be described as such. First, whatever the SHO moniker may lead us to initially think of the car the reality is that the Taurus SHO absolutely isn't intended to be a SRT8 style performance vehicle, it's more appropriately described as a very quick near luxury car. And given the sales of the line thus far, the market at large seems to be embracing that strategy.

As for your assertion that the car will fail because it is more expensive, the exact opposite seems to be the case. The Taurus lineup, including the SHO, appears to be succeeding because it is by far the cheapest large car to offer such a high level of content. Genesis probably comes closest to offering as much for as little, but to get all the tech goodies the Taurus SHO offers standard you have to drop 41k on a Genesis which is a couple grand more than the Taurus SHO starts at, and even then you still wont have awd which matters if this is going to be your daily ride and you live North of the Mason Dixon line.

Put plainly, Taurus is doing well because it offers a lot of goodies for the price. A lot of folks on the net keep arguing that the Taurus can't possibly succeed because it isn't fast enough and/or doesn't handle well enough, but by all appearances the buying public finds the car more than fast enough (I am surprised that so many find the performance lacking, mid 13's are easily going to be good enough for 99 percent of buyers in this segment and the S Class has traditionally outsold the 7-Series for a reason....handling doesn't need to be spectacular since people in this class typically aren't looking for that) and is flocking to the SHO where they left the G8 GT and GXP for dead. Why? Because Taurus offers the luxury and tech goodies folks who actually buy cars in this segment apparently want where G8 only offered size and speed.