Cars! Cars! Cars!

Dodge Outs the Ram R/T

What the ? Did Dodge not get the memo that we're not buying these anymore? Did Dodge not get the memo that gas is $4/gallon, the economy is in the crapper and that dirty, hippy chicks don't give you dirty, hippy love if you're driving these?

Seriously, while Jalopnik reports: 2009 Dodge Ram R/T Accidentally Revealed By Dodge, that headline should read, "2009 Dodge RAM R/T Accidentally Produced"

We're not 100% sure if Summer is a dirty hippy chick, but if so, we're hoping there's dirty hippy love involved.

Muscle Car Wars Prediction?

OK, the price has been set for the Dodge Challenger and it's what everyone is talking about:

Jalopnik reports: The Muscle Car Wars Are On! Dodge Reveals Commercial, Challenger SRT8 Pricing To Start At $37,995.

Autoblog reports: 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 arrives at $37,995.

The fact the Muscle Car wars are heating up at this time fascinates us so much. And leaves us with so many questions:

1. With the recession on the horizon, is now a good time for a high-priced non-essential car?

2. With so many focused on reducing our dependency on foreign oil and the environment, is now a good time for a really powerful car that won't get particularly impressive on fuel economy or emissions?

3. With Mustang sales waning, does introduction a competitor make sense?

4. What sort of impact, if any, will the Challenger have on the Charger?

Yeah, those questions are totally one-sided, but that's OK. If you disagree, leave a comment. By the way, here are some stats:

For 2007, it looks like:

Dodge will sell about 130,000 Chargers, up about 2%

Ford will sell about 145,000 Mustang, down 18%

We predict good sales for Challenger and Camaro for maybe two years. After that, it'll be downhill. What do you think?

That's a 2008 Shelby GT. One of the 4,500 Mustang variations you can buy.

Don't Touch Our Charger!

CNN reports:
Downsizing Dodge. Basically, it's this idea

So Chrysler has come up with a better idea. According to news reports, it is considering stripping the Dodge name from its passenger cars and the Chrysler name from light trucks to create two distinct brands with no product overlap. Chrysler would become the car brand and Dodge the truck plan. SUVs would go to Jeep, which would also keep traditional off-road vehicles.

And so we thinks to ourselves we think, "Hey, maybe dis is a good idea. Make it all distinct-like and maybe consumers will see how it all woiks and Chrysler is for da cars and Dodge for da trucks."

But then we look at the sweet Dodge Charger and we think, we don't want to buy a Chrysler Charger. Why not make Chrysler the upscale division (like Cadillac) and Dodge the boy-racer division with some trucks on the side? We're cool with the booting of minivans to Chrysler, so they're out of the Dodge brand in our no-fail plan.

Thoughts? What should Chrysler do?

See how we sepia-toned that sumbitch? Filters, baby. Filters.

Muscle Ca... Yawn... Car Wars

Does anyone care anymore? We're not saying the Challenger isn't cool or the Camaro is lame... it's just that we've all moved on to other things now. Like hoping Bill Ford doesn't come back to Ford in a managerial capacity or Land Rover & Jaguar don't get sold to India.

Anyway, when Autoblog reports: Details on Dodge Challenger drivetrains we just want to yawn and yawn.

Think the release of the Challenger and Camaro will reignite the Muscle Car wars or just fizzle out?

That thar is a snap of the Challenger Concept due in 2008

Chrysler Kill Kill Kill

Jalopnik reports: Chrysler Set To Drop The Ax on Pacifica, PT Cruiser, Dodge Magnum. With sales of each down in the terlit, none of this is a surprise. What is a surprise:

1. Why is Mercedes-Benz making a Pacifica for the high-end crowd? The R-Class doesn't seem to be selling all that well, either.
2. That Chrysler didn't listen to us when we suggested the Magnum wasn't long for this world: What Chrysler is doing wrong.

That thar be a Magnum (from a few years back).

Toyota: No Sales For You!

"They're all ours." The Detroit Free Press reports: Toyota may raise its sales forecast.

Toyota could announce by the end of the month that it will increase its 2007 global vehicle sales projections to 9.35 million, up a half million vehicles from the global sales expected for 2006, according to the Mainichi newspaper in Japan.

Many analysts have predicted that Toyota will surpass General Motors Corp. next year as the world's No. 1 automaker. GM sold 9.2 million vehicles worldwide in 2005. It has not provided full-year 2006 or 2007 sales forecasts.

What will be extra interesting is 2007 because auto sales in the U.S. are expected (not by us, just some fancy suit dudes) to fall. If we're all buying less, who is going to suffer the most? What are folks hankerin' for? A Toyota or a GM? To be honest, we're still hankerin' for a Dodge Charger. It pains us since a Dodge Charger totally means no free, dirty-hippie lovin'. It probably means a big-haired chick. How is that so bad?

That's a snap of a Dodge Charger. Because we have to have one. Have to. Maaaaahm!

Avenger

Winding Road reports: Dodge Avenger Coming This February, Minivans Expected In Fall. We're not sure how we missed the Avenger. Well, scratch that, we read about it, but we somehow missed the snap. Go check it out. OK, the model is smokin', too, but check out the car. What y'all think? Looks like a decent little brother to the Charger. Does it make sense to build a little competitor to the Charger? Sales are in a good way for the Charger (up over 200% for the calendar year compared to last year), so it stands to reason the folks are diggin' it, but maybe want something a bit smaller or more affordable. Thoughts?

At this glance we dig this. We'd like to read more about it, however, so if you have, let us know what you think.

Short-Term Goodness

"Get these mofos off the lot!" That's what we'd be yellin' if we were Chrysler. "We got more birds comin' in and we need the deck clear!!" That's what we'd be yellin' if we were the chief on Battlestar Galactica. "This plan is a bad idea and will come back to bite you in the arse!" is what we are actually yelling. Towards Chrysler. The Detroit News reports: Chrysler tries risky lease plan. There was an awful lot of corporate talk in this article (and virtually zero Battlestar Galactica talk), so it confused us a mite, but the idea is... plan bad.

Dealers say Chrysler is making lease deals on 2006 models even more attractive by lowering lease interest rates, relaxing credit requirements and raising vehicles' residual values. ...

To make payments attractive, automakers typically have to subsidize leases with precious marketing dollars. Moreover, Chrysler could take a hit on the back end when it sells vehicles coming off lease -- especially if it overestimated their residual, or resale, value when the lease was calculated.

So, anyone out there gonna lease a Chrysler? Which model and did you get a good deal?

If we could get it for $250 a month, we'd grab a Dodge Charger (pic) for leasing. It's a badass car. And we're nothing but badass, baby? What? We're just bad? See? That just makes us all sad-like. Thanks, hater!

A Visit To The Nursery

The NY Times (registration required) reports: Taking Delivery at the Plant to See Their Babies Born. This is either really cool or incredibly sad. Cool? Cars right out of the factory? Boltin' on pieces of the car you've been saving a long time for? Bonding with the American workers who are building your car union style?

Sad? It's not a baby. It's a car. They pollute, they're expensive, and they disconnect us from our neighbors.

That being said, if we were invited to the plant to help build a Charger, we'd hightail to the plant. USA! USA!

Canada? It's built in gorram Canada? See, now we're all pissed. Nice work, Doc Z! The Charger should be built down South where Alison is. Everyone knows that!

Neil Triumphs Caliber

The Detroit News reports: The Dodge Caliber: New and unimproved. Talk about poopin' on! Dan Neil throws a pie at the Dodge Caliber:

The Neon bolted from a cold-dead stop to 60 mph in a wig-twisting six seconds; the Caliber R/T leaves the line, stops off for lunch and a high colonic, checks its e-mail, then finally arrives at 60 mph in a stupendously boring 10-plus seconds, which means it can be dusted by your average UPS truck.

Mr. Neil likes the look of the Caliber (so do we), but feels it's not ready. He says:

The Caliber is new. All that remains is for it to be improved.

He sounds pretty much like what we wrote after the 2006 NY Auto Show:

New for this show was the Dodge Caliber, a small wagon. It felt pretty cheap to us, but at $15k, maybe we were setting our expectations too high. The seats didn't feel very comfortable, either. Our main concern was that the subcompacts from the big three Japanese makers felt better put together.

Anyway, the Caliber needs some massaging. Hell, so do we. Oh, Alison! Time for the daily Cars! Cars! Cars! rubdown. Oh, stop the retching already.