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Chrysler slows minivan production, hasn't built VW Routan this year

Chrysler has slowed production of its Town and Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans this week, Automotive News reports. The Windsor, Ontario plant will cut its three shifts from eight hours each to four hours each in an effort "to align production with market demand," a Chrysler spokesperson told AN. Chrysler also builds the closely related Routan minivan for Volkswagen at its Ontario facility, but has not built a single example thus far in 2013.
Sales of Chrysler's minivans fell 15 percent for the first two months of 2013, and a large part of that has to do with the 26-percent drop of the Grand Caravan alone (the T&C was only down by one percent). According to Automotive News data, as of March 1, Chrysler had an unsold inventory of 24,713 Town and Country models and 18,547 Grand Caravans - a 69- and 43-day supply, respectively.
"No sense running full speed now, then have a lot of vehicles sitting around a few months down the line," Chrysler spokeswoman Jodi Tinson told AN. Full production is expected to resume again on March 18.

Chrysler almost smothered the Hellcat before it lived

Chrysler's 6.2-liter supercharged Hellcat V8 was an absolute sensation from the very moment it was announced, and honestly, how could it not have been? Packing 707 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque, its numbers immediately put every other production muscle car (and many supercars) to shame. Plus, we soon learned that would be wrapped in a package retailing for around $60,000 - a pittance compared to other vehicles offering similar grunt. However, the Hellcat almost never got the chance to rumble under the hood of the Challenger and Charger.
The Hellcat was initially proposed back in 2011, back when Fiat was deciding its future strategy for Chrysler Group, according to Automotive News. At the time, the company was just emerging from its bankruptcy doldrums, and an ultra-high-performance V8 wasn't exactly a must-have item. The program didn't move forward. However, SRT engineers kept fighting, according to AN, and four months later, they received the green light to pull the project off the shelf and continue developing the Hellcat. The muscle car world is certainly better for that decision.
The work of those engineers focused on taking Chrysler's standard 6.2-liter V8 and making it reliably handle all of the extra power from the supercharger. "It came down to micron levels of changes in the crank to be able to withstand the pressures of the engine," said Chris Cowland, director of advanced and SRT powertrain, to Automotive News. The changes amounted to switching out about 91 percent of the parts to make the Hellcat, including some quite minuscule alterations. For example, the washer holding the supercharger pulley is embedded with industrial diamonds to keep it from slipping.

Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat's 707 storming horses can be yours for $60k

We love a good deal on high performance. It's what traditionally makes muscle cars so appealing - you get lots of speed, for not a lot of money. For 2015, Dodge has taken this to its logical extreme, offering its new 707-horsepower, supercharged, V8-powered Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat for just $59,900. For those wondering, that works out to just about $85 per horsepower, which when compared with a typical budget performance car, like the $24,995, 210-hp Volkswagen GTI ($119 per hp), demonstrates the Hellcat's astonishing value.
The information was revealed by a photo (click on the inset image to expand) taken at this week's Portland launch event (our man Seyth Miersma is just now on the ground and will have a full report on the madness that is the Hellcat soon) for the entire 2015 Challenger range, and reveals the Hellcat's price alongside its high-powered competitors from Ford and Chevrolet.
The discontinued 662-hp Mustang GT500 started at $56,000, while the 580-hp Camaro ZL1 starts off at $58K. Indeed, the only muscle car that outprices the Hellcat is the track-focused Camaro Z/28, a car that we're guessing could still wallop the Hellcat on the right piece of track, despite being down over 200 hp.