ORIGINAL: Billionaire
Cutting costs at Chrysler is a top priority for the company under the direction of Chairman and CEO Bob Nardelli.
I sure did figure that out, but I'm much more understanding about it now since Chrysler is in financial trouble and GM has much more money to spend on new models. I read it costs $1 billion to develop a completely new car. Challenger is a killer car anyway. They used a good quality chassis and they got the body right, so those are the most critical things. I guess it would not have been cheap for them to use the concept interior. From what I read in a magazine, it takes an enormous amount of money and red tape to implement even the smallest features. Still I would like to see an aftermarket company develop an interior similar to the concept.
That is often the issue. I once heard that the reason why the GTO looked so much like the Grand Prix was due to the fact that it was the quickest way to get it on the market. You'd be amazed how much making this stuff costs. The interesting thing is Chrysler has been able to many times build things at a lower cost than the other 2 of the Big Three and many times the product was of better quality. On such example was the original Stratus compared to the Contour. Naturally, the Stratus isn't the greatest car Chrysler ever made; however, it was not the disaster and total flop that the Contour was and Ford spend more money on the lower quality Contour that lasted one generation. This platform is a good one and worth the extra money as despite the extra weight it manages to do better than the Mustang's according to the magazines. The other thing you might also consider is Chrysler has far worse interiors in production that could have been used. Image if they used the Sebring's interior on the Challenger, then you would hear me criticize Chrysler on the Challenger's interior.