Friday, July 9, 2010 marks the death of the Chrysler PT Cruiser. The retro-inspired "Personal Transport" wagon was introduced in 1999 as a 2000 model and quickly became one of Chrysler's best selling vehicles of all time before a convertible model was introduced in 2005. Over the decade, Chrysler sold more than 1.5 million of the wagons and convertibles, selling almost 100,000 in 2007 but dropped to just over 50,000 two years later. Reports for the first half of 2010 are stating that only about 8,500 have been sold nationwide. It was an incredible downturn for the car that everyone fell in love with. It was an attractive car that was geared towards the utilitarians of the world, and they gobbled them up. Many customers even purchased more than one. Demand was so high for the car that many dealers could not keep them on the lot. Chevrolet was even interested and asked PT Cruiser designer Bryan Nesbitt to come up with their own version, and then came the Chevrolet HHR - the PT's direct competition. But as the economy began to tank and Chrysler was tossed around between various owners, the PT Cruiser took almost all the wrath of cost-cutting and then everyone traded them in for higher-quality cars. Both my parents and my aunt, were also involved in this, having owned a PT Cruiser but traded both of them in for two much nicer Honda CR-Vs. It has been a prime example of what has been going wrong in the US Auto Industry over the past decade. There has been too much cost-cutting and not enough attention turned towards the initial and long-term quality of their cars. It's made improvement but it's got a long way to go.
Read the article here: http://tinyurl.com/2e67scn
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