Why $90,000 Doesn't Always Buy You a Comfortable Car | Green Business | Reuters
I check out the Wall Street Journal’s autos coverage frequently online, but it wasn’t until yesterday when I was leafing through the good old print edition that I ran into a true head-spinner.
This story about Chrysler vehicle quality covered familiar ground. No one really thinks about the Pentastar as producing vehicles on a par with Toyota (TM) or even, say, Ford (F). Chrysler has its own thing going (even in bankruptcy, and probably after bankruptcy), and that’s bold design.
It was the photo that accompanied the story that got me. The car pictured is the Dodge Viper, a street-legal race car with a 600-horsepower V10 engine that costs more than $90,000. It will do zero to 60 in less than 4 seconds and top out at 200 mph. (And unfortunately, it’s being discontinued at the end of its current generation.) According the WSJ, however, Consumer Reports found the Viper to have a “harsh ride, noise, poor driving position, and lack of creature comforts,” all of which “take their toll on the driver.”
Well, yeah! It’s a rocket sled built around a humongous engine! Ideal customer is a Navy F-18 pilot who's used to being hurled from aircraft-carrier catapults! Toll me, Viper! Toll me! Not really the sort of thing a person shopping for “creature comforts” places high on his list. Better to use something like a Dodge Caliber to symbolize Chrysler’s quality problems. Because there's nothing wrong with the Viper. Unless you consider getting Lamborghini Murcielago acceleration at less than a third of the supercar's lofty price ($313,000) a problem.
I check out the Wall Street Journal’s autos coverage frequently online, but it wasn’t until yesterday when I was leafing through the good old print edition that I ran into a true head-spinner.
This story about Chrysler vehicle quality covered familiar ground. No one really thinks about the Pentastar as producing vehicles on a par with Toyota (TM) or even, say, Ford (F). Chrysler has its own thing going (even in bankruptcy, and probably after bankruptcy), and that’s bold design.
It was the photo that accompanied the story that got me. The car pictured is the Dodge Viper, a street-legal race car with a 600-horsepower V10 engine that costs more than $90,000. It will do zero to 60 in less than 4 seconds and top out at 200 mph. (And unfortunately, it’s being discontinued at the end of its current generation.) According the WSJ, however, Consumer Reports found the Viper to have a “harsh ride, noise, poor driving position, and lack of creature comforts,” all of which “take their toll on the driver.”
Well, yeah! It’s a rocket sled built around a humongous engine! Ideal customer is a Navy F-18 pilot who's used to being hurled from aircraft-carrier catapults! Toll me, Viper! Toll me! Not really the sort of thing a person shopping for “creature comforts” places high on his list. Better to use something like a Dodge Caliber to symbolize Chrysler’s quality problems. Because there's nothing wrong with the Viper. Unless you consider getting Lamborghini Murcielago acceleration at less than a third of the supercar's lofty price ($313,000) a problem.
...hmmm.
