Well stated points from all of you on this thread. I still love the car... I just wish it had some aftermarket performance products that I didn't have to have build as one off's... It gets really expensive trying to mod. a true racing Crossfire... But I will get there eventually...

I finally realized why I was drawn to the car in the first place. My first sports car was a 5 year old 1971 Triumph GT6+... It was a piece of crap from a performance and maintenance standpoint, but now in retrospect it looks kinda similar to the Crossfire...

https://www.crossfireforum.org/galle...cat/500/page/1
https://www.crossfireforum.org/galle...cat/500/page/1
https://www.crossfireforum.org/galle...cat/500/page/1

It's a car... Have fun with it... I have people always stopping and saying it's a great looking car... I also have people at the track asking me why there aren't more crossfires in my run group... Why are there no other Crossfires on the track ?

Chrysler ain't gunna support it... it's history...

I have fun beating the **** out of it on the track, burning through a set of tires in two weekends... It's now starting to take a toll on the car, but what the heck... I love it...

Yes I want 400hp... But, I want the Crossfire as well...

 

ok here's the story how i got the car. My first car was a 01' v6 stang with real low miles at the time and I got a great deal on it. Before this i drove my dads neon. well, i worked at a chrysler dealership at the time, my dad and his three brothers work there (chrysler plant), and both my grandpas worked at the plant also. So as you can imagine a ford car in a "chrysler" family i got razed, but they really didn't care, as long as i was happy with my car (ford), and then I saw the crossfire, and the dealership ran some numbers for me to see what payments would be around. I got the car in july of 04' as an 05' model and this is only after having my stang for about 8 months. Well i still owed about 11k on it, and it had probably like 33k miles on time of trade in. I got the employee price on the crossfire, i got what i owed on my stang for trade in (so i wasn't upside down at all, how many people can say that?) and I was getting a car that was even faster than my stang, which i wanted (a faster car) and I had only seen one other before driving on the roads (even though there were a ton on the lots) hmm. maybe that was a sign. anyways, how could i go wrong. but I am a speed freak, and now that i have had a taste I want more. if i could get out of my car almost scratch free i would love to. cause for what i pay now i could easily get a 12-13 second stang gt. And since there are no tracks where I live, no mountains as i'm in the midwest, all i really need is a straight line car. plus no backseat kind of sux sometimes. But there are times when i love my car, like spanking the lil civics with fart cans and my buddies modded eclipse. Sorry for long post but you asked why i wanted out of the lease. ps. with a lease mods can't be permanent cause the car has to be turned in stock.

 

We'll have to wait and see Shelby GT 500 mustang comes out for less than the SRT8 charger. MSRP for the SRT8 Dodge was just announced at $35,995. A four door with 425 hp that can do 0-60 in almost 5 flat at that price is going to be tough to keep on the lot. ;-)

 

Schrempp is out at the end of the year, the new 'Joe Somebody' is Deiter Zetsche. Taking his place as CEO of Chrysler group will be Tom LaSorda. An American back at the wheel. ;-)

 

the srt8 has the 6.1 hemi not the 5.7 like the r/t there is a big difference. the base srt8 model of the 300c was over $40k, which is essentially the same car as the charger.

 

Slide93, Thank you for making that correction on my part for my comments about who is replacing Schrempp & Friends. Zetsche, and Lasorda are going to be the movers and shakers for the New Daimler Chrysler. Joe Eberhardt, is to head up those Mercedes Guys, OOOhhh those guy's.

 

Not 100%, but pretty much. At least up to before the employee pricing, they were staying on the lots just under a year, around 325-330 days. When they first came out their price point was way too high and National just didn't put enough money into marketing since it's a limited production car and they assumed it would fly off of the shelves. There's not much motivation to continue to produce a car that doesn't move and must be shoved down dealer's throats.

 

How do you sell a car, that isn't being sold? Chrysler never wanted to "Sell" this car. They wanted to make a couple bucks because they would have taken a fat lose on the poor sales of the 03/04 SLK's. Knowing that once the SLK-R's came out, now one in there right mind is going to want an 04/ when the 05 is going to be light years better, and have the new look of Mercedes Benz. So they said screw it lets use what we got, and put it in a new Look for Chrysler. Killed two birds with one stone. The only thing is they weren't sure what they wanted to do with the Crossfire's. Now you got a challenge, on your hands. The Crossfire owners will get a 50K car for 30K, that's fine since the SLK's are already there and paid for. Now what do you do when all the SLK 170's are gone, and these cars are selling like hot cakes. Either integrate the SLK-R's into the Crossfires, or Start Designing the Crossfires of the future that is cost effective enough to stay in the Price point...Or you don't market it, and let the whole thing die off. While at the last minute you throw in a couple of commercials, may be an appearances in a couple Michael Bay movies. Then when you pull the plug officially, you can say you did all you could to sell them, it just wasn't a hit. Now they don't look like the bad guy's.
However I don't think they were counting on such young buyers to be getting into the mix.
The price point to start was almost guaranteeing that the purchaser was going to be a male in his late 40's early 50's. Perfect if that were the case then what ever snags DC got into, it may only effect maybe one generation of the consumer purchases. Ok with the avg life expectancy how many new cars does the avg person own after the age of 50? 1,2,3? So in theory they only stand to loose may be 50K cars over say 10-15 yrs time from doing what they did with the crossfire. Well when were talking with those numbers, it not so hard to pull the plug, rather then invest in a whole new deal.
But now there affecting those numbers of losses greatly, because I don't think that there would be a substantial number of younger drivers getting in the mix. (Ages 23-32) Why do you think the role call, and the AVG age of the Drive Question went on for so long. They had to know how big of an impact this was going to make on there future sales. Well thanks for thinking of me as just a number!

 

Sorry about the Novel Guys, what can I say I'm Italian.

 

The price I quoted is for the SRT8, not the R/T Crossfirekid...I know the difference, I work for the company. The 5.7 in the R/T has the MDS system and the 6.1 (rated at 425 hp) does not...thanks for the correction though.

The car that was introduced at the Woodward cruise is the R/T with the Daytona package (special paint/trim with the 5.7). The price for the SRT8 Charger was announced, but there is no date yet for when it will be available on dealer lots, and it will be 5k less than the equivalent Chrysler model the SRT8 300. The Dodge brand always comes in at a lowered price point than the equivalent Chrysler model.

 

he is right, srt8 charger is $35,995. someone on the charger forums got one for 3 k less than that already. too bad its auto, cuz it looks dam good.

 

They could have definitely made the Charger look a WHOLE lot better than it does... and of course, it should have been a 2-door.

 

I agree...a 2-door should have been a must...I'm not that up on the new charger but from my understanding (and some interior pictures I've seen) its based on the 300C which shares multiple parts on the older E-class setup. While I can sort of see a one time hand-me-down (Crossfire, 300C) doing it twice starts to seem excessive IMO...Since isn't Mitsu owned by Dodge; I hope something like a Lancer Evo full-sized sedan is not in the works.

 

i'm pretty sure the new charger is not bigger than the old one, and it has four doors because the challenger is going to have two.

 

Interesting but I heard that the new challenger won't be out until '09 and be in comp. against the regular Mustang's. If that's the case I would guess it would be lower on the Dodge's food chain power wise (SRT10 Viper--SRT8 Charger---then the Challenger) making the two door slower then it's four door cousin...

 

It would have been a smart idea for them to try a retro look with the Charger and promote it alongside the Dukes of Hazard movie - since the movie will probably increase the interest in the older Chargers, and in turn, interest in the Charger in general. And I think the GTO ought to look a bit better too, although I'm far more impressed with the 2005 GTO than I am with the 2006 Charger SRT8.

 

I did see at least a color layout similar to the old one orange/black (minus the flag) I think was offered on the R/T.

 

i hear 07' for the challenger and what do you mean "regular mustangs"? do you mean the v6. perhaps in base form, like how the charger has a 2,7, 3.5, 5.7 and 6.1, but the challenger will obviously come with both hemi's. haven't you noticed the determination of dodge to become the powerful in each market segment.

 

Oh okay - smart idea to leave that flag off, huh?

 

By "regular" I meant non-Cobra, Shelby-type trim levels. That is exactly what I've noticed about Dodge so that is why I would wonder why then would want to overlap cars if they offer lets say the 5.7, 6.1 in the challenger since both would are already in the Charger and while you might get some better times in a lighter, two-door with the 6.1...then I would think you would might be touching some Viper-ish track numbers (which would probably still be priced much higher then any Challenger).

I could see though them making the Challenger to be a budget boy racer type car (i.e. Chevy Cobalt , Mustang, Eclipse, etc. crowd) since Dodge has nothing to offer this market bracket at the current time...(I would label the SRT-4 in more with the STI, EVO crowd).