We purchased it in Filmore California. My wife wanted to purchase a Solstice, she had been waiting for almost a year but when she test drove it she didn't like how it felt. There was a Chrysler dealership around the corner and we stopped in to look at a 300 when we spotted a Crossfire. It was an SRT that stickered for $51K but the salesman said they would drop $13K of the price [without us saying anything.]

That was still more than we wanted to pay, the Solstice was around $26K and that was my wife's expectation. But that got us thinking about why a dealership would discount a car so much so we went to the dealer in Simi Valley and they had marked them down $9K off sticker. We went through the song and dance with them for about an hour and we learned a little more. Chrysler was discounting the cars to the dealer $9K to sell the 05's, we certainly couldn't get an SRT for that price and the lowest we could get the limited was $29K but we thought we could get the standard roadster for around $24K.

The problem was finding one. We went online and found two, one in Filmore and the other in Glendale. I had a meeting in Glendale so I stopped in to take a look. We had pretty much resigned ourselves that we probably wouldn't like the base model - but actually I like it more. I like that it is all black without any polished aluminum. So we called both dealers, told them our credit score, how much of a down payment we had, what we wanted our payments to be and after you do the math the car had to sell for ~$22K. Knowing that Chrysler had incentives to the dealer for $9K and that the dealer in Westlake was willing to discount the SRT $13K I felt we were close enough, since the base model stickered in the low $36K.

Interestingly enough the dealer in Glendale where they must have had 15 Crossfires, all but one was an SRT, would not make a commitment over the phone. The dealer in Filmore, who had only two Crossfire's, [they sell a lot of trucks] said they thought they could make the deal. I told both of them that if we come to them they had better make the deal we discussed on the phone.

We went to Filmore, the car was what we expected, we made our offer then they started to tell us that we have to be reasonable that they couldn't sell a car for less than they paid for it, bla, bla, bla. I told them we knew about the $9K incentive and that we had told them what we expected and we weren't there to negotiate and got up to leave. Just then the salesman from Glendale called to tell my wife he thought we were in the ball park, she told the sales manger in Filmore who was on the phone and asked if we had a deal, I doubt he believed her but he made the deal.

I don't want to try to make it sound like we are great negotiators or something, we're not at all. This is my wife's car and I insisted that she do the talking and she was great. She showed enough interest so they knew she was serious but not so much that they also knew she would walk away. Once you know what Chrysler is willing to do to help the dealer's sell their remaining inventory, the dealer only had to move on the price a couple of grand, which they are probably prepared to do on any new car.

I think the key is to find a couple of dealers with Crossfire's and offer them what you want to pay. The thing I think my wife was so good at was that she didn't make it about the deal, it was just simple math, they could either do it or they couldn't. If they couldn't we were prepared to thank them and move on and I think they knew that. From now on [although I haven't told my wife yet] I think she should purchase all of our new cars. It was actual a pleasant experience.

Sorry for the long winded reply. The short answer is that getting a new base model for $24,600 to $25,500 is doable. The harder thing is finding them, there are a ton of limited's and SRT's. I suspect that by June you can get '05 SRT's in the low $30's.

Oh yeah, my wife loves her Crossfire and is very happy that she also got a good deal - which makes me very happy and I'm sure the dealer was happy to see the car go too. So everybody's happy, happy, happy!