2013 Chrysler 300c Luxury Series Awd With 5.7l Hemi V-8 on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Pickup prices rising at 2x industry average

We've said it before, but bears repeating: Pickup trucks are the financial engines of America's automakers. Good thing, then, that the segment is in rude health - in fact, Automotive News is suggesting that pickup truck sales are arguably healthier than they were pre-recession, even though the segment's volume is still significantly down from where it was before the bottom fell out of the US economy. That's because per-unit profits on full-size trucks are skyrocketing, outpacing the industry's average price increases by more than double since 2005. According to data from Edmunds, the average transaction price of a full-size pickup is now $39,915 - a heady increase over the $31,059 average price in 2005 - a gain of over 8 percent after inflation is factored in.
Just how important are trucks to automakers' bottom lines? Automotive News quotes a Morgan Stanley analyst as saying the Ford F-Series is responsible for 90 percent of the company's 2012 profits, and General Motors isn't far behind, with the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra twins chipping in about two-thirds of the automaker's earnings.
Automotive News points out that Detroit's automakers now have the money to invest in modernizing their full-size truck offerings, in part because they don't have the same overhead and legacy costs that pushed General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy. Certainly, the pickup segment has seen a lot of innovations as of late, including turbocharged V6s, coil-spring rear suspensions and active aero. Those improvements in important areas like fuel economy and ride comfort have given existing pickup buyers new reasons to upgrade. In addition, automakers are piling on the tech and luxury goodies, creating more and more high-content, high-profit models like the Ford F-150 King Ranch, Ram 1500 Laramie Longhorn and Chevrolet Silverado High Country (shown).

Junkyard Gem: 1990 Chrysler New Yorker Landau Mark Cross Edition

The hallowed American tradition of the cushy, softly-sprung sedan with padded vinyl landau roof and puffy upholstery had its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, but you could buy such cars well into the 1990s. Even after Lee Iacocca's modern front-wheel-drive K-Cars appeared in the early 1980s, "traditional" Detroit luxury cars based on the K platform continued to be built by Chrysler for quite a while. A great example of this is the 1983 to 1993 Chrysler New Yorker, which managed to mix up the philosophical concepts behind the plush-yet-affordable 1970 Chrysler Newport with the space-efficient, lightweight Iacocca Era in one machine. I found one of these, a 1990 New Yorker Mark Cross Edition in a Northern California yard, and I wish to share its resplendence with you as today's Junkyard Gem. Lee Iacocca wanted Chrysler-badged cars to seem like Mercedes-Benzes (a little earlier, Ford had the same idea with the Granada), but at one-third the cost, and so we saw these "crystal-pentastar" hood ornaments for quite a few years in the middle 1980s through early 1990s. While Ford had deals with Cartier, Pucci, Bill Blass and Givenchy to sell "designer edition" cars, Chrysler went with leather-goods king Mark Cross. The base MSRP for the 1990 New Yorker Landau was $19,509, and the Mark Cross Edition package tacked on an additional $2,069 to that cost (that's like getting a $4,565 option package on a $43,050 car, when figured in 2022 dollars). For that price, you got power everything: a digital instrument cluster, a bunch of extra body moldings and interior goodies, and throne-like seats swathed in vinyl and Mark Cross leather (which, I'm just guessing, could not be distinguished from the famous (infamous?) Corinthian Leather of this car's Cordoba predecessors). Padded landau roofs were big in the 1970s and fairly deep into the 1980s, but had long fallen out of favor with the under-80 set by 1990. Still, Chrysler was proud of its landaus, and this car has big badges inside and out to prove it. By 1990, most luxury cars came standard with at least an AM/FM stereo radio, and that's what this car has. If you wanted to play cassettes, you'd have to pay at least an additional $254 (about $560 today). The 1990 New Yorker belonged to the extended K-Car family, living on the same platform as the very similar-looking Dodge Dynasty. The only engine available for this car in 1990 was the 3.3-liter Chrysler V6, rated at 147 horsepower.

Fiat Chrysler, GM are trying 7-year 0% loans, online buying to lift plunging sales

With auto showrooms shut during the coronavirus pandemic, Fiat Chrysler and General Motors moved to reboot demand with seven-year, no-interest loans and programs allowing customers to buy vehicles online. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' new "Drive Forward" marketing program includes online shopping tools that will for the first time allow U.S. customers to complete the purchase of a vehicle through an FCA dealer without setting foot in a dealership, a company spokesman said. The move toward online sales and home delivery breaks with a long U.S. auto sector tradition of manufacturers giving franchised dealers control of sales to consumers. Dealers have fought Tesla 's efforts to sell vehicles directly to consumers through its website. GM and Fiat Chrysler's promotions of extended, no-interest loans — made less costly by the Federal Reserve's recent interest rate cuts — echo the "Keep America Rolling" sales push GM launched to jump start a paralyzed consumer market after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But the pandemic has been pulling auto retailing into the digital age, with dealerships shuttered across the country and sales likely to take a further beating in April as social distancing guidelines remain in place.   Related: Auto sales drop in March as coronavirus hits demand, output   FCA shares were down 4.9% to $6.84 in afternoon trading in New York after the company posted a 10% drop in first-quarter U.S. auto sales, as the pandemic hurt demand and halted production from mid-March. The company, however, did not break out sales by month. General Motors reported its first-quarter sales fell 7% because of significant declines in March, and said customers can use its existing "Shop.Click.Drive." program to find, purchase and arrange for home delivery of a vehicle. A GM spokeswoman said across the Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac brands the automaker has seen two to four times greater online site visits and sales leads than before the pandemic. Hyundai said earlier that its U.S. sales fell 43% in March due to the pandemic. "It goes without saying that the entire world is facing a tremendous challenge that is having a significant impact on business and our normal way of life," Randy Parker, vice president for sales at Hyundai Motor America, said in a statement. Toyota said its sales were down nearly 37% in March and 8.8% for the quarter. Nissan reported a 27% drop in first-quarter sales.