Jon,
Dodge is tying the performance legacy of the muscle era Charger to the new
Charger and they have made that link.
The reason people didn't order hemi's back in the muscle car era was they were
an $800 option that did not perform any better than the $200 440 and was a hole
lot fussier as a driver. And if you look at the magizine articles from that
time frame bone stock hemi cars were not as fast in the 1/4 as the new one.
Dave Clement
99 SLT+ CC 4x4
In article <d8q1jo$soj$1@bent.twistedbits.net>, jon@dakota-truck.net writes:
>
>
> "M S" <fetta78@hotmail.com> wrote:
> : So it's called a Charger. So what. It appears to be very nice! I saw one
> : this weekend at the local dealership and if I needed a new car I would have
> : one! For a sticker of $23K it was just about perfect.
>
>
> I know I recently said this in a different thread and on a different
> subject, but the reason its a big deal is because words are supposed to
> mean things. By taking a name out of their past, the car they put it
> on really should have some sort of connection with that past. Then again,
> considering that they have slapped the Charger name on quite a few different
> vehicles, maybe they ARE being true to their (recent) past. ;-) I would
> think that they would try to be true to their roots though, rather than
> trying to continue a legacy of trying to mooch off their glory days.
>
> Lets say for example that they designed a replacement for the Dodge
> Neon and called it the Dodge Viper. That would make no sense at all.
> A Viper has always been a sports car, and now they have an econocar named
> Viper? Its the same thing with the Charger. People generally strive
> for order and elimination of chaos, so when something comes along like
> this which seems to fly in the face of common sense and reason, naturally
> confusion will ensue and some feathers are going to get ruffled.
>
>
> : So it's called a Charger. So what. It has four doors, the better the schlep
> : people around in. You know why? Because that's what people do! They don't
> : drag race to work everyday, they don't autocross the Kroger parking lot,
and
> : they don't time-trial their main mode of transport.
>
>
> No, they autocross through amusement parks, apparently. (Or at least
> that's what I am led to believe by their "unleashed" web site.) ;-)
>
>
>
> : So it's called a Charger. So what. The original Charger was almost a
> : disaster, it was based on the Coronet. Only sold 468 Hemi's out of 37,344.
> : In 1967 only 15,000 were sold, including 118 Hemis. They only became
> : "popular" after the restyle.
>
>
> Depends on your definition of "disaster" I guess. If you look at
> sales figures, very few of Chrysler's vehicles could keep up with GM
> or Ford's numbers. That certainly doesn't make them a disaster though.
> Look at how few 427 Shelby Cobras were sold. Today, its an icon. There
> were only something like 17 Hemicuda convertibles sold. That was no doubt
> a disaster to the bean counters back in '70 and '71, but today these cars
> are the pinnacle of Mopardom, and it is expected that they will be selling
> at the $10 million level very soon. The balance sheet success or failure
> of the original vehicles doesn't matter a whit today. All that matters
> is their legacy amoungst the general population. In the early 70s, there
> may have only been 17 people who wanted a Hemicuda, but today, almost
> anybody would love to have one. Lets say Chrysler wanted to capitalize
> on that, and renamed the Chrysler Town & Country minivan to the Chrysler
> Hemicuda. First of all, its not going to work; nobody is going to confuse
> a minivan with a pony car, and secondly, it makes no sense. There is no
> connection between the current vehicle and the classic one it is named
> after. THAT is why people are making such a big deal about the Charger.
> Words *mean* things, and if you just start going off willy nilly and
> sticking random labels on things, our entire communication system breaks
> down, society unravels, human sacrifice, dogs and cats, living together -
> mass hysteria! :-)
>
>
> --
> -Jon-
>
> .-- Jon Steiger ---- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com --.
> | 1970 Barracuda - 1990 Dakota 'vert - 1992 Ram 4x4 - 1996 Dakota |
> | 1996 Intruder 1400 - 1996 Kolb FireFly - 2001 Ram QC 3500 CTD |
> `------------------------------------ http://www.jonsteiger.com --'
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