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2019 Dodge Challenger Hellcat with twin-scoop hood spied with no camouflage

Dodge recently teased an updated 2019 Challenger SRT Hellcat sports coupe complete with an all-new hood with dual scoops. It didn't reveal anything else about the vehicle, saying more details were coming. And now we have more details, but not in the way Dodge probably wanted. We can now see the updated Hellcat with the new hood. To be perfectly honest, it's pretty much what we expected. The teaser photos indicated that the hood was the only major body change, and this car confirms it. The rest of the body is identical to a normal Hellcat. The bumpers, grille mesh, even the wheels are all standard Hellcat parts. Even the slotted rotors and Brembo calipers look the same. This car does suggest that the hood will be available on both the narrow-body Hellcat and the Hellcat Widebody, the latter of which was featured in the teaser images. There is actually one other minor difference on this 2019 Hellcat's exterior, and that's the grille badging. There's now a vintage-style badge with "Challenger" written in script off to one side. Currently only one grille and badge design is available on Hellcat, and it features just the SRT Hellcat logo. It appears the SRT badge is still present, but blocked off on this prototype. So it's possible this new badge comes with the new hood as a sort of retro package for Hellcat. We should have all the details on this and other 2019 Challengers when the car is officially revealed later this summer. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2019 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Spy Shots View 11 Photos Image Credit: KGP Photography Spy Photos Dodge Coupe Performance dodge challenger srt hellcat

Fiat Chrysler dumped 40,000 unordered vehicles on dealers

In a move that echoes recent history, Fiat Chrysler has been making more cars and trucks than dealers in the U.S. are willing to accept, with Bloomberg reporting that at one point the automaker had built up a glut of around 40,000 unordered vehicles. That’s led some dealers to accuse FCA of reviving the dreaded “sales bank” accounting practice of obscuring inventory to improve the balance sheet. The company reportedly began building up its inventory of unordered cars this summer despite an industrywide slowdown in sales and an eagerness by some dealers to thin their inventories because rising interest rates are making it more expensive to hold unsold cars. The inventory build-up also coincided with Fiat ChryslerÂ’s efforts to find a merger partner, first with Renault, which fell through, then last monthÂ’s announcement that it will merge with FranceÂ’s PSA Group. FCA denies any such scheme and tells Bloomberg the rising inventory is down to a new predictive analytics system designed to better square supply with demand from dealers that is helping the company save money and narrow the numbers of unsold vehicles. The company recently agreed to pay a $40 million civil penalty to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a complaint that it paid dealers to report fake sales figures over a span of five years. While no one is suggesting that FCA is in dire financial straits — the company saw higher than expected earnings in the third quarter and record profits in North America — the practice has strong historical precedent by Chrysler, which built up bloated inventories in the run-up to its two federal bailouts, in 1980 and 2009. It was also common at GM and Ford during the 2000s, when all three Detroit automakers struggled with excess manufacturing capacity and plummeting sales in the lead-up to the Great Recession. Back in 2012, CFO Magazine wrote about a report that explained automakersÂ’ rationale for the practice and how it works: Say fixed costs for a given factory are $100, and that the factory can make 50 cars. Consumers, however, demand only 10. Under absorption costing, if the company makes all 50 cars, its cost-per-car is $2. If it makes only up to demand, or 10 cars, the cost-per-car is $10. Although each car adds variable costs for steel and other parts, if those costs are low, the company still has an incentive to make more cars to keep the cost-per-car down.

Chrysler's next-gen minivans will get more expensive

Chrysler introduced the value-oriented Great American Package on the base model Chrysler 300 in 2005. That morphed into the American Value Package available as an option on the Dodge Grand Caravan in 2012, which made it the lowest-priced minivan in the country, now with an MSRP of $21,395. Automotive News reports that Chrysler is going to kill the value package when the new Town & Country arrives for 2017, because the new platform and technology of the coming minivan make it "a difficult price point to get to." AN says the next-generation haulers will come in around $26,000 and can go beyond $45,000 with options; clicking every "Add" button we could find on the Town & Country build page, we couldn't get past $43,000 for today's model. That entry pricing in 2017 would eliminate the first three trims on the Dodge option, the American Value Package, the SE that starts at $24,195, and the SE Plus that starts at $24,995. This makes us think the next-generation haulers will take a sizable step upscale in terms of feel, content, and trim, a la the Chrysler 200. In this writer's opinion, if they do as good a job as they've been doing recently, the extra money will be worth it. There have been spy shots and a lot of rumors about it, like the Caravan minivan going away and becoming a crossover, but we'll see it revealed at the 2016 Detroit Auto Show. News Source: Automotive News - sub. req. Chrysler Dodge Car Buying Minivan/Van chrysler town and country price dodge grand caravan