Originally posted by: compman25
Originally posted by: Arkaign
This is incredibly poorly timed. I think it will sell well to a certain crowd, but it's not a large enough niche to make a success out of. It's also far too similar to their other offerings (giant behemoth V8 fuel guzzlers). In other words, it will only siphon sales away from other Dodge SRT models, diluting their existing production capacity and reducing profitability.
A welcome sight would be a ~360bhp Turbo 6 with cylinder deactivation. Goal = 25mpg city, 33mpg highway in regular driving, with a curb weight of ~3400 or so.
Lincoln is ahead of the curve on this idea, dropping the V8s from the lineup. With fuel prices unlikely to ever come down to what was the norm when the Challenger got the green light for production, V8s / guzzlers may start to vanish purely from economic circumstance with no government intervention involved.
During the 70's people said the same thing, it was the end of performance cars and big V8's. Well, they were wrong. And they cited the same problems, high gas prices, emissions, safety....All it takes is one manufacturer to make something popular and the others follow. Think 85 Mustang with the roller cam, carb'd 5.0, from there it has gotten better up to this point. Every US manufacturer has big muscle cars. But now everyone wants to make the Pinto's, Gremlins, and Chevettes of this era. But someone in the future will once again make a performance car and the others will all follow and again we'll have another era of muscle cars.
This is not the 70s. The fuel crisis then was largely artificial in nature due to OPEC. Today we have two huge emerging markets (China/India), alongside a general economic boom in Asia as a whole, causing massive strain on petroleum supplies globally. It doesn't help that speculators are driving the costs up as well. And the final insult is the freefall of the dollar. Looking at the US economy, our fundamental weaknesses and self-destructive behavior, it's incredibly unlikely that we will ever see gas as cheap on a relative scale as it has historically been. Combine that with the resulting higher prices in every single good and service that depends directly or indirectly on energy for manufacture/transport/storage, and you have a recipe for a new paradigm in the way we think about energy.
Expensive fuel is here to stay, and it will only get worse, even considering inflation. Watch the prices skyrocket through the summer to $4/gallon, and when winter comes, you can bet the oil companies and speculators won't let the price slide much at all, then next summer the push will be for $4.50 or more, then a small slide, then summer '10 push for $5 or more. Again, this is best-case scenario. If something wacky happens with Iran, Pakistan, etc, it will get a lot worse a lot faster. Also check in with the 10-year numbers for China. They're skyrocketing upwards, and will be the world's largest economy in about 7-8 years.
This brings us to domestic car production, and US consumer choices. 'Muscle' cars are a small fraction of sales overall, and you only have to look at the Mustang for a great example of a mass-market car in 'Muscle' clothing. The vast majority of Mustangs are V6s already. The GT, Cobra, etc are pretty rare in comparison. Also look at how many people are posting in threads about how to get the best fuel economy, and more than ever, people are looking at fuel economy numbers when choosing a vehicle. If Ford, Chevy, Dodge don't offer a decent choice, then people will buy imports. China will have vehicles on our roads pretty soon as well, and possibly India as well.
The catalyst will be the differential in options. If consumers have no choice but to buy 300+hp 4,000+lb sub-20mpg land behemoths, then that's what they'll buy. But if company B offers a 220hp 3,000lb 35mpg car that offers equal space, comfort, and performance, then that car will sell much better in this kind of market, all other things being equal.
Anyway, this is a new era, not a blip like the 70s. The 70s were followed by the 80s and cheap oil. The only reason that happened is OPEC opened the taps, and we didn't have to compete with China and India for the dominant supply.
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