You may recall that Chrysler shut down the factory producing Hemi Hybrid Dodge Durangos and Chyrsler Aspens— despite ChyrCo spinmeister Scott Brown’s absurd contention that they had plenty of orders for same. Wee a GM hybrid guy talking to a Chryco hybrid guy told one of our guys that the ailing (as in zombie) American automaker built 400 gas – electric Durango/Aspens. Which are now headed for the crusher. Apparently, Chrysler doesn’t want to support only 400 vehicles in the system. Crushing vehicles is no biggie for an automaker; early press and other pre-production vehicles are routinely destroyed to avoid liability problems. This is the first time I’ve heard of a post-production vehicle suffering the same fate. You know; if you exclude the EV1.
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Well I guess we’re nearing the end of Mopar’s days now. Someone should put up the cute 1994 ad of the Neon zipping around the hillsides with “Hi.” crossed out and replaced with “Bye.”
Sad to see what used to be an engineering force many decades ago collapse into Nardelli’s bonus package.
Anyway, they should donate these things, sans battery packs, as gliders to universities so they can experiment with hybrid powertrains for research and development, like GM did with several of the old EV1s. Permanently scar the vehicles somehow and give them away.
A shame that they might all just go to waste.
So do they repo the ones they already have out?
And damn I just quoted and ordered one for January.
Sh*t give one to me I will promise to never sell it or sue you unless it burns my family alive. But don’t worry I wont sue you for that I’ll just kill you so no biggie.
It can be the ugliest one(well they are all ugly) in some scratched up mustard color I don’t care.
What a huge waste of money and resources, and you wonder why you are about to go out of business.
Can they not remove the hybrid hardware and electronics…run it down the line and install a new drivetrain? Or is the VIN already established?
You know damned well the Big 3 would have done that in the past. Maybe even market it was a 2010 model while they’re at it.
Even though they’re legal to sell (not being pre-prods), if there’s only 400 of them it’s a fairly rational business decision to scrap them. When an OE sells a vehicle they have to support with parts for a period of time.
If they were willing to invest a little time and money they could give them away to technical/auto shop colleges who are always looking for late model vehicles to train their students on. (It might have to be something as radical as cutting it in half at the B pillar, for example, to ensure it’d never see the light of day on a road; but a school would love to have that.)
My hunch is they’re so busy throwing the women and children overboard and readying Nardelli’s lifeboat they don’t have time to do what’s needed to give these units away properly.
They should crush them, but they should make the marketing people who thought a hybrid SUV was a good idea do the dirty work.
Stop the madness!
They’re still marketing them on their website, though Tesla and the Volt are also getting coverage…
Could sell them in Chernobyl suburbs. Who would sue there? And how one would prove that damage does not come from leaking reactor?
Do you hear that government? They’re killing their hybrid program. You now have reason number 20,583 not to bail them out.
Chrysler should keep them around long enough to justify getting a piece of the $25-billion new technology bailout.
Lee Iacocca got one, I hear. Any others that Escaped?
You know damned well the Big 3 would have done that in the past.
Funny how times change…I remember a few years ago an article on a guy restoring a Mopar musclecar (I think it was a 70 Roadrunner) with a VIN ending in 000000. Chrysler records showed that it was a test drive and photoshoot mule. I guess in those days they figured, hey, why waste a good car? Times change.
They should crush them………after strapping most of their execs inside…………
NickR :
October 31st, 2008 at 4:39 pm
You know damned well the Big 3 would have done that in the past.
Funny how times change…I remember a few years ago an article on a guy restoring a Mopar musclecar (I think it was a 70 Roadrunner) with a VIN ending in 000000. Chrysler records showed that it was a test drive and photoshoot mule. I guess in those days they figured, hey, why waste a good car? Times change.
Yep, I’ve heard of a few Mustangs that were built and then Ford canceled that particular variant. They ended up going to Ford employees and eventually making it to the public as used cars.
If anyone sees one in the wild, please report it.
The key question for me: should I go through the trouble of entering pricing for these in TrueDelta’s database. I haven’t done the 2009 Aspen and Durango yet, because I go in order of site visitor interest…and there hasn’t been much in these.
# TexN :
October 31st, 2008 at 5:43 pm
They should crush them………after strapping most of their execs inside…………
Darn, beat me to it………..
Perhaps, one day, pristine examples of the Durango/Aspen Hybrid will be worth a considerable sum as a historical curiosity, if nothing else.
For example:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/Chevrolet-Vega-GT_W0QQitemZ280280816896QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item280280816896&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1215|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318
“This is the first time I’ve heard of a post-production vehicle suffering the same fate. You know; if you exclude the EV1.”
This is unusual but not unheard of. Citroen, notably, have done it twice – once with the GS Birotor (around 700 built, most were bought back and crushed to prevent having to supply them with spares), and later with the Group B BX 4TC. Two hundred or so were built for homologation purposes, plus another 20 Evo versions; around three-quarters of the total production run was bought back and scrapped, either because (depending on who’s telling the tale) they were desperately unreliable, or because Citroen was so embarrassed by the car’s pathetic performance in competition that they wanted to erase all official record of its existence…
Oh, and the Chrysler hybrids? Strapping the execs in gets a thumbs-up from me.
I hate to start a post with “According to Wikipedia…”, but I must. They say that the Nissan Van (sold in the States for a brief interval late in the 1980s, looking like the Toyota Van and Mitsubishi Vanwagon) suffered the same fate, because of fires. All of them were recalled, and then all of them were destroyed. I don’t know if it’s true or not — several internet forums do mention it — but I do know that you can’t find one for sale (not that I’d buy one).
Farce.
Lee Iaccoca already has his Aspen Hybrid. If they were looking to crush them so they didn’t have to support them, it’s too late now.
In fact, you guys covered it!
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/chrysler-sells-its-first-aspen-hybrid-to-lee-iacocca/
They’ll simply recall and crush Iaccoca’s as well, considering he got it ‘free’/comped.
As Chryco is currently offering a lifetime powertrain warrantee with every crap vehicle they put out, electing to crush rather than supporting these hybrids for decades to come is probably a sound financial decision.