Re: Measuring Up to the Competition
I think it was more than just wanting a sports car. They needed something to bring people into the showroom. At the same time Chrysler was essentially broke and had to put engineering dollars into more productive things.
I suspect part of the appeal of the Crossfire was that it was very cheap to bring to the market. My windows sticker says "84 % German" and everything except for the outer skin was Mercedes. That is the only rationale for the brakes sized for a 16" wheel. identical interior. And that nutsy crossbar behind the seats with holes drilled for the SLK tonneau cover pivots.
The interior is the most telling point. I find it hard to believe that Chrysler ergonomic engineers would have ever signed off on something with such narrow seats, limited range of movement, and no tilt wheel unless not consulted.
Further I imagine that Chrysler would have much rather have used their 3.5 liter SOHC V6. Except for one minor factor, the engine compartment would have to be redesigned to fit a 60 degree V6 in the place of a 90 degree.
Have mentioned this before, there are a lot of disadvantages and only one advantage to a 90 degree V6 and that is that it can be assembled with V8 tooling and it is easy to put either a loss-leader V6 or profit oriented V8 in the same engine compartment.
Really from a Mercedes standpoint, giving the SLK line to Chrysler just meant additional profit from a line that was already obsolete.
A quality line because Mercedes builds nothing else but still obsolete.
So what we have here is really an extreme case of badge engineering designed to fit the niche left by the Plymouth Prowler (not quite 12,000 sold) and by reskining an existing car line. It would not surprise me that C-D could make expenses at a $25k price point since the investment was so low.
It probably also helped financially troubled Karmann to stay in business.
Then with the separation of Chrysler and MB in 2007, the Crossfire ceased to be viable. Besides Chrysler had its own models including a Sebring retractable to sell.
So I would not call the Crossfire a flop at all, rather a halo car that was a product of the merger and not expensive in terms of investment to build.
In finance you consider three things: sunk costs (design, tooling, and bring to market which were very low for the Crossfire), fixed cost necessary to keep in production (and I suspect something of a sweetheart deal to help keep Karmann open - see the Wikipedia article), and finally the variable costs required to produce each car.
While creative accounting is used by any business, I doubt that Chrysler lost any real money on the Crossfire and it filled a niche.
A niche that could be filled by a Maserati variant (C-J-F now)- deja vu all over again.