There are two cars coming to the end of their production near simultaneously. While one is the Dodge Viper whose production comes to an end at the Conner Avenue plant in Detroit, the other one that faces similar fate is the PT Cruiser which marked as the icon for the Chrylser LLC group comes to an end at the Toluca plant in Mexico. Chrylser somehow is playing the issue of this end of production line on a low level. No official announcement also been issued till now by Chrysler.
Brian Nesbit was the mastermind behind the design of the Chrylser for which it was labeled as the love-it-or-loathe-it design. The car had originally been conceived as a Plymouth and then with its retro shaped and styling changes it crossed over to become a compact and finally came into the market in 2000 as the Chrysler. Brian Nesbit had later on joined GM and created the Chevrolet HHR which resembled the PT Cruiser.
The PT Cruiser is well known to have been built just to grab attention rather than for sales in high number in mind. Yet the crossover design had such effect upon the consumers that this went on to be the best selling model from Chrysler for quite a while. So successful was the model that consumers had to be kept on waiting list as per Jim Halls the managing director of Consultancy 2953 Analytics on when he spoke to LA Times.
Brian Nesbitt was quoted as saying “It is the most profitable small car in Chrysler history.” This could be accomplished due to several factors. One was the use of a small car platform which already existed. In addition the car being built in Mexico reduced production cost as Mexico is aloe cost country. This car has also been produced by Magna Steyr in Austria.
There have been a plethora of special edition cars that Chrysler has presented to us thereafter. Like the Woodie or the soft –top Convertible and also a sportier variant equipped with a turbocharged inline-four.
Annual sales touched 192,000 cars in 2001 and remained above the 120,000 mark for quite eight years continuously. Sales thereafter dipped to under 70,000 in 2008 and then to 25,000 last year owning to Chrylser not redesigning the car thereafter. In all there has been a sale of 1.3 million units of the PT Cruisers including the 2000,000 units outside of the US.
There is no indication of a new PT Cruiser or redesigned one coming from Chrysler as yet.
Source: carscoop
