http://www.forbes.com/home/opinions/...1009flint.html


The Captain Picard looking Author echoes sentiments made in posts here

He also makes an interesting point that Dodge may be missing the boat running from perceived failing/faultering product offerings like the Durango. I think it makes a lot of sense, remember when Dakota was billed as the smart sized medium sized pickup truck. When everyone's running from making a product, sometimes it probably does make sense to hang out and be the only game in town.....

 

This is a good article; however, I'm not sure it belongs in this section necessarily as it isn't really about the upcoming Challenger.

There are times it pays to stay in what appears to by a dying segment because sometimes an old dog becomes a star once again if repositioned properly. Take station wagons for an example. The image that many people had back in the 80s and 90s of station wagons was comparable to the Family Truckster. Nobody really considered a station wagon other than the purpose of having a different people hauler alternative to a minivan. The were by no means seen as a performance vehicle or even being cool to own. Just an example of this was that the Taurus station wagon did not even feature the SHO model because they did not consider a station wagon to be a performance machine. Beginning with the PT Cruiser that began to change. Chrysler saw that styling what is essentially a station wagon like an old car would be popular. After it was a smashing success, they decided to offer the turbocharge GT models to answer the demand for more performance. They used this example to come up with the idea of bringing back muscle station wagons like the Magnum.

This proves that some trends will come back in time. One that seems to be dying slowly and at this point does not appear it will come back is the full-sized Vans. The fact that people don't have as large families as they used to and new laws create more serious requirements for people to drive these vehicles has really hurt this segment, not to mention the rising oil prices. They are now used more for commercial use than really anything else.

It would be wise to keep an offering in the larger SUV market; however, they need to cut down on production as it is not as popular as it once was. The big three have been working on CUVs and some have been moderately successful such as the Escape and Vue. The thing that Chrysler needs to remember is to keep Jeep out of this segment because it could do serious damage to their brand image as these are not designed with the intent for off-road capabilities. This is something they should reserve for Dodge and Chrysler (and Eagle if they wouldn't have axed that division, this would have been the perfect segment for them).

 

Yeah, "Off Topic" probably a better section? Los Sientos, still trying to find my legs in this forum.

As for dying segments, mid-sized pickups seem like such a natural home run for those inclined to go the truck route....though for my money not flexible enough...have always been a mini-van fan even in youth...I just saw intrinsic value in the practical flexibility, couple a strong minivan w/ a utility trailer and you can hall massive amounts of hardware for home improvement projects....and to think Ford came up with initially but wasn't smart enough to market it.....

Muscle cars make much more sense to me if I'm going to be purchasing a vehicle that consumes tons of petrol, I'd rather have something I can more fully realize its potential, than say an SUV that goes to work, to kids' practice, to grocery store, to home, to work again...and never in its life sees a logging road, fire trail, bog or any other such appropriate environ.

Anyhoo, that's my $.02.

And I'll lay a little more scrutiny on where the next post goes. Thanks for your patience. :-)