What vehicle do you drive?

[Rose]

A Rover

[orange arm waver]

A Hyundai Accent - nowt special but does the job
And should I ever get some money to fix her back up my Yamaha XV535... I miss her...

[TonyI]

Can anyone in the Colonies explain Chryslers marketing, here in Offshore UK, I have a Chrysler Grand Voyager Limited.

On our recent trip to the Colonies, I noticed the same model marketed as the Plymouth Voyager, Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country, why the three different names for basically the same car ?

Used to be:
Dodge- entry level/race minded people(sporty)
Plmouth-entry level/more family minded
Chrysler- uplevel market

Now Plymouth is gone so now you have the Dodge NASCAR type (lots of money in raceing) and Chrysler the upper market but yet below the "Benz" market.

And if just changeing the grill isn't enough DCX,GM and Ford platform share within their own companies. Example: the Dodge Magnum and Chrysler 300 are nearly identicle and they share many parts with the MB E class(suspension and drivetrain except engine), its just that when you go into a MB dealer you can see the sedan AND the wagon next to each other . But if you go up the street YOUALL can gets youreselves a Hemi in that thar same(almost)V-hicle.

I've worked on the body engineering side for the past 25yrs. Designing for Chrysler/Jeep, Ford, GM/Toyota/Saab,AM General,Volvo, last 5yrs at the GM Design Center working on show vehicles the full size SUVs, H2s and pickup trucks, So you have Chevy trucks/SUVs,GMC trucks/SUVs and Caddilac SUVs They are all the same... some are just prettier, $$ than the others.

Cheers
Tony

[Rose]

What are your thoughts on Concept Cars?? Rose

[TonyI]

Nessessary evil, I worked on parts of the H2, H4, TERRADYNE, SSR, Soltice, Cadd 16 and quite a few SEMA vehicles. The studios need to strech the designs and get feedback from the public, unfortunatly marketing doesn't seem listen to the public or the empolyees (that are not in marketing) and then theres purchasing which seems to take the content out of the design which is what the public wanted in the first place. And that goes for most all the automotive manufacturers. I was on the engineering side so may job was to make the concepts work not create them so i'm not one of the one to take credit for, or the blame of the designs, I just helped to make the pieces work.
If one piece of a concept car made the public go WOW and could be implemented into a production car then thats worth it and pushing the technology and processes ranks right up there also.

Cheers
Tony

And yet some of the designs could be called just F'N wierd but I guess we need that extreme