Under the terms of its contract with the US Treasury, Fiat will get an additional five percent of Chrysler Group’s equity when it builds a 40 MPG (CAFE, not EPA, so actually about 30 MPG) vehicle in the US. But it turns out that Dodge already sells a car that might qualify… unfortunately, Dodge doesn’t actually build it, offer it in the US, or, starting with the 2012 model year, even bother to rebadge the thing. That’s right, you’re looking at a 2012 Hyundai Dodge Attitude… the only non-red, and one of the only non-Dodge-branded car in the brand’s Mexican lineup [the Hyundai Atos and H100 “Ram Van” are also badged with the Korean brand’s “H.”
Sajeev Mehta has reviewed the previous Dodge Attitude, which Chrysler went to the trouble of creating new badges for, but based on the look of things at dodge.mx, the 2012 Hyundai Accent is clearly something of an odd man out in the lineup. And with Fiat doubtless looking for sales in Mexico, it’s not clear how the Chrysler-Hyundai partnership will last in Mexico… but for the moment it appears Chrysler is pursuing a renewal of its deal with the Koreans. After all, rebadged Hyundais constitute over a quarter of Chrysler’s Mexican sales. And maybe they’ll do even better now that they’re not rebadging them.
Pathetic, although I like Dodge. The Atos is also a Hyundai by the way.
I thought Dodge put its Ram-head badge on the Atos, but apparently I was wrong about that. It is also sold (according to the website) with a Hyundai badge…
Eeew. What a strange relationship.
There used to be a pretty odd three way relationship between Chrysler, Mitsubishi, and Hyundai. Shared cars, shared work on engine designs, etc. And for whatever reason Mitsubishi didn’t seem to mind that the early Hyundai “self engineered” motors were essentially a mirrored Mitsubishi motor with everything on the opposite side and minor tweaks.
Funny thing – GM (higher quality US oem) sells a rebadged Daewoo (lower quality Korean oem) and previously many kinds of Toyotas (higher quality Japanese oem). Dodge (lower quality US oem) sells a rebadged Hyundai (higher quality Korean oem) as the Attitude. Seems they need to swap backwards here – let’s have GM resell the Hyundai and Dodge the Daewoo, then everything will be alright in the world.
You’ve got to get into one of the new Chrysler cars– their quality is world-class.
“World-class”?
That remains to be seen.
Given that Fiat is one of the least-reliable European makes, and Chrysler has consistently demonstrated themselves to be the least-reliable American make, the likelihood of Chrysler suddenly vaulting to Ford / GM level, much less Honda / Subaru levels of quality is beyond the pale.
But if they’re still around in a couple years, we’ll see at that point.
Quality impressions /= long term reliability. A polished turd will soon reveal what it really is.
The cars are absolutely sumptuous. Get in one and be prepared to eat crow, boys. If you’re not impressed, something’s wrong with you.
FIAT hasn’t been one of the “least reliable” European makes for many years now.
World-class? Not quite but a large improvement over the horrible interiors of 2010 models.
Dont forget the new RAM Van as well: http://www.camionesram.com.mx/autos-nuevos/h100-wagon-2012/
So its not just the Accent that they don’t bother to re-badge…
Dang! Missed another one… updated!
Dodge hasn’t bothered to rebadge its Hyundai products in years (if it ever did at all). I lived in Mexico in 2006, and recall visiting a Dodge display at a local shopping mall with an Atos proudly sporting the italicized H.
It may be that it’s Hyundai that does not want the cars rebadged, since it intends to enter the Mexican market with it’s own brand. It may not be laziness or stupidity on the part of Dodge. And maybe Dodge is ok with it because they will have FIAT based car soon to sell instead of the Hyundai.
Even Renault/Nissan is bringing Korean cars rebadged, the Fluence is no other than a Samsung car and what about GM’s Cruze, an Daewoo Lucetti rebranded.
However the quality at least on finishings of the Fluence as well as the Cruze looks good, we’ll see in a few years about their reliability.
Saludos from Mexico
I see the last generation Hyundai Accent badged as the Dodge Attitude on the road with Mexico plates here in San Diego commonly.