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2013.5 Chrysler 200 S Special Edition is a Sebring swan song

The world is set to get an all-new Chrysler 200 next year, thereby finally putting the bones of the long-serving Sebring to rest. To tide us all over until then, the automaker has released the 2013.5 200 S Special Edition. As a collaboration between Chrysler and the Imported from Detroit clothing line, the sedan features plenty of aesthetic tweaks to give it a bit more attitude. Those include tinted headlamp and taillamp housings, body-color door sills and 18-inch gloss black wheels. There's also a revised front fascia with a black mesh grille, while the tail end gets a decklid spoiler and a revised valance.
Indoors, the seats are clad in black, water-resistant fabric courtesy of Carhartt. Expect to see the 2013.5 200 S Special Edition in dealers soon with a price tag of $28,870. While there are plenty of questions to be asked here, one is more nagging than the others. Why bother buying the special edition when an all-new model is mere months away? It's an age-old question, but it still bears asking. Check out the full press release below for more information.

Pete Grady retiring from Chrysler, Maserati

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is about to lose one of its top executives as the president of Maserati North America, Pete Grady, has announced his retirement. A lifelong automotive industry exec, Grady joined the American Motors Corporation back in 1984 after graduating from John Carroll University in his native Ohio. After AMC was bought out by Chrysler, Grady started rising through the ranks under the Pentastar as a sales manager. He was named vice president of network development and fleet operations in 2009 and was shortly thereafter put in charge of the Chrysler Group's dealer network. He continued to hold that position when he was named last year as the top man at Maserati North America. Grady will continue to hold responsibility for Chrysler's dealer network until his retirement takes effect on March 31, 2015. His position as head of Maserati's American office, however, will pass to the Trident marque's global sales chief Christian Gobber, who will hand off responsibility for the Chinese region to Mirko Bordiga but maintain his global portfolio. CHANGES AT THE TOP IN MASERATI NORTH AMERICA AND MASERATI CHINA Monday, 8 December 2014 – Effective January 1st, 2015, Christian Gobber will be assigned responsibility for Maserati North America, replacing Pete Grady, who has announced his intent to retire effective March 31st, 2015. Christian Gobber will maintain his responsibility for Maserati Global Sales. Effective January 1st, 2015, Mirko Bordiga will join Maserati and will be assigned responsibility for Maserati China, replacing Christian Gobber. Maserati further strengthens its sales and commercial structure in the two main markets for the Trident brand. Maserati CEO Harald Wester thanks Pete Grady for his dedication and achievements at the helm of Maserati in North America, and wishes all the best to Christian Gobber and Mirko Bordiga in their new positions. ### Chrysler Group's Grady to Retire December 5, 2014 , Auburn Hills, Mich. - Chrysler Group today announced that Peter Grady has stated his intention to retire, effective March 31, 2015. In the interim, Grady will retain his current responsibilities as Vice President Dealer Network Development and continue as a member of the Company's NAFTA Leadership Team. In a move announced earlier, Christian Gobber will assume responsibility for leading Maserati North America, effective January 1, 2015.

Hyundai-Kia claims 'greenest' title from Honda, Big Three still big losers

Let's start with the good news. On average, any new car you buy in the US today will be 43 percent cleaner than any average new car in 1998. Here's some more good news, for Korea anyway, Hyundai-Kia has been named the cleanest automaker in the latest study by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which looked at 2013 model year vehicles sold between October 2012 and September 2013 from the top eight automakers (by volume). The bad news? The big three Detroit automakers are, on average, still making the dirtiest cars in the showroom. The big three Detroit automakers are, on average, still making the dirtiest cars in the showroom. The problem for Ford, General Motors and Chrysler lies in their trucks, which sell well but tend to have pretty bad fuel economy (compared to sedans, at least). The UCS calculates its list by averaging "the per-mile emissions for each light-duty vehicle sold by each automaker" and then factors in "the fuel economy, fuel type, and sales volume of each type of vehicle sold by each automaker" and "the upstream global warming emissions from producing and distributing the fuel used by each vehicle, as well as emissions from the vehicles themselves." That all means that, the more trucks you sell, the worse you're gonna do. Then again, the more trucks you sell with 18 mpg, the more you're helping drivers put CO2 into the air, so the UCS is doing a fair comparison of the things that this study is trying to track. More details on the methodology are available on page six of the study PDF. In case you were wondering (we were), UCS did make sure to use the revised mpg numbers for Hyundai and Kia models that were originally overstated. Hyundai has apologized for and fixed those figures and even with the new, corrected numbers, Hyundai's total emissions are dropping at a rate of about three percent a year, enough for it to take the greenest company title for the first time. In fact, this is the first time that an automaker other than Honda has come out on top in the UCS ranking, which has been released six times now, including the first one in 2000 (which looked at 1998 model year data). In 2010, Honda was almost knocked off the winner's perch by both Hyundai and Toyota, but managed to hold on. Chrysler, on the other hand, came in dead last (again) in the ranking of the top eight automakers, snagging the "dirtiest tailpipe" award once (again). Read the UCS' press release below.