1968 Dodge Dart 440 721hp..dana 60..very Solid Car on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Dodge hoping Fast & Furious appearance gives Dart a sales jolt [w/video]

According to Automotive News, Chrysler is hoping Fast & Furious 6 will be kind to the Dodge Dart. While the compact sedan doesn't actually show up in the film, Dodge has partnered up with the movie franchise for a new ad featuring the Dart.
Chrysler hasn't exactly seen the high sales numbers it was originally hoping for with the new sedan, thanks in part to a couple of missteps. For starters, most early-production vehicles were only offered with a manual transmission. Analysts believe Chrysler squandered around 95 percent of potential Dart sales because automatic transmission options weren't immediately available.
Right now, the Dodge Dart rakes 19th among compact cars, pulling down 31,064 sales through April. Last month was the company's strongest, with 8,099 units moving off of dealer lots. Unfortunately, the model has also been handicapped by its older sister, the Avenger. With Chrysler throwing heavy incentives at the aging sedan, many consumers have taken advantage of a better deal with the slightly larger, more powerful Avenger.

The Grand Caravan, at least the name, isn't dead yet in Canada

Last week we got Stellantis. This week, we’re learning that the Grand Caravan name isnÂ’t actually dead. ItÂ’s just moved to Canada. Allow us to explain. The Dodge Grand Caravan is well and truly gone. However, FCA has decided the name is too good not to use. Therefore, FCA Canada just announced that Canadians will get the Chrysler Grand Caravan for the 2021 model year. One look at the photos will tell you most everything you need to know about the van. ItÂ’s a rebadged Chrysler Voyager, which itself is a budget Chrysler Pacifica by a different name. Basically, the U.S. gets the Voyager, and Canada gets the Grand Caravan. “WeÂ’re incredibly proud to maintain the ‘Grand CaravanÂ’ nameplate exclusively in the Canadian marketplace,” said David Buckingham, President and CEO, FCA Canada. “Particularly here in Canada, that name has become synonymous with affordable, safe and innovative family transportation that the 2021 Chrysler Grand Caravan builds upon.” Now that the Voyager and Caravan are the same again, the next logical step would be to bring back Plymouth, right? Rebadged Plymouth Hellcats wouldnÂ’t bother us. Just Â… you know, an idea. Canadian customers will have the choice of two trims for the Grand Caravan: Base and SXT. Similar to the U.S., upper trim levels of the van will be called Pacifica. The two will be sold alongside each other at Chrysler dealerships. Photos of the Pacifica with the Grand Caravan badge already have us a little weirded out, but now youÂ’ll know whatÂ’s going on during your next trip up north when you see a Chrysler Grand Caravan roll by. Related video:

Auto Mergers and Acquisitions: Suicide or salvation?

We love the Moses figure. A savior riding in from stage right with the ideas, the smarts, and the scrappiness to put things right. Alan Mullaly. Carroll Shelby. Lee Iacocca. Andrew Carnegie. Steve Jobs. Elon Musk. Bart Simpson. Sergio Marchionne does not likely view himself with Moses-like optics, but the CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles recently gave a remarkable, perhaps prophetic interview with Automotive News about his interest and the inevitability of merging with a potential automotive partner like General Motors. Marchionne has been overtly public about his notion that GM must merge with FCA. For a bit of context, GM sold 9.9 million vehicles in 2014, posting $2.8 billion in net income, while FCA sold 4.75 million units and earned $2.4 billion in net income, painting a very rosy FCA earnings-to-sales picture. But that's not the entire picture. Most people in the auto industry still remember the trainwreck that was the DaimlerChrysler "merger" written in what turned out to be sand in 1998. It proved to be a master class in how not to fuse two companies, two cultures, two continents, and two management teams. Oh, it worked for the two individuals at both helms pre-merger. They got silly rich. And the industry itself was in a misty romance at the time with mergers and acquisitions. BMW bought Rolls-Royce. Volkswagen Group bought Bentley, Bugatti, and Lamborghini, putting all three brands into their rightful place in both products and positioning. No marriages there, so no false pretense. Finally, Nissan and Renault got married in 1999. A successful marriage requires several rare elements in this atmosphere of gas fumes and power lust. But a successful marriage requires several rare elements in this atmosphere of gas fumes and power lust, the principle part being honesty. Daimler and Chrysler lied to each other. The heads of each unit, the product planners, and finance all presented their then-current and long-range forecasts to each other with less-than-forthright accuracy. Daimler was the far greater equal and no one from the Chrysler side enjoyed that. The cultures were entirely different, too, and little was done to bridge that gap. Which brings me back to the present overtures by Marchionne to GM. "There are varying degrees of hugs," Marchionne stated in the Automotive News piece. "I can hug you nicely, I can hug you tightly, I can hug you like a bear, I can really hug you." Seriously?