Remember a couple weeks back when we told you about Chrysler'simprobable legal battle against little Lake Mary High School in Florida? Chrysler's legal team put the smack down on the school for using the Ram logo as its school insignia, and the law jockeys in Auburn Hills, MI were giving the school until June 15 to remove all instances of the logo at a considerable cost to the school district and neighborhood taxpayers.
It appears cooler heads have prevailed at Chrysler, as Allpar is reporting that the school and automaker have made an agreement that allows the school to keep the admittedly perfect-for-a-football-helmet logo, at least until wear and tear requires their replacement. The reported agreement stipulates that the school must declare its partnership with Chrysler on signs stating "Lake Mary: Proud Partner of Chrysler." We think Chrysler should also sponsor the prom and provide a 300C stretch limousine for every senior. C'mon, think of the good will!
When we originally told you about the legal tussle between Lake Mary HS and Chrysler, we were more than a little critical of Team Pentastar for its legal action against the small school in a town of 15,000. It wasn't because Chrysler didn't have every legal right to protect its trademarks, but rather making a school district pay lots of money to remove a logo when it wasn't really damaging is just bad PR for a company that can ill afford any more bad PR. Compromise can be a very good thing, and it's nice to see that the folks at Chrysler see that. Good people of Lake Mary, Florida: feel free to continue purchasing vehicles from the Chrysler group.
There've been no shortage of spyshots to be had showing the upcoming next-gen Dodge Charger, but to date we've yet to see the interior fully revealed. Our spy photogs have remedied this by finally capturing the big rear-wheel-drive sedan's inner domicile. What's plainly obvious is that Dodge designers have added some swoop to the Charger's angular interior. Note the silvery dashboard piece that acts as a backdrop for the cluster gauge, driver and center air vents and the rather large navigation screen. This particular interior is two-tone with what appears to be light-colored leather seats and door inserts, with black plastic (soft touch, we're hoping) everywhere else and some nickel-colored trim thrown in. There's also a new three-spoke multifunction steering wheel and information display between the tach and speedo.
All in all, we see a big improvement over the current car's aged interior, but a final verdict will have to wait until we can get our grubby paws all over it. We've also got some new spy shots of the exterior that don't reveal much more than what we've seen before except a naked C-pillar. Have a look in the high-res gallery below.
2010 Ford Mustang Boss 302R - Click above for high-res image gallery
Last week in The Wall Street Journal, writer Ben Austen publised an article in which he ruminates on why no one appears to be racing the Detroit Three's neo-muscle offerings - the Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Challenger. That the piece succeeds overwhelmingly at, however, is highlighting the myopia of America's mainstream press when it comes to motorsports. Many people in media seem to be completely unaware that there are forms of automotive competition other than NASCAR, because the cars the WSJ article focuses on most assuredly are involved in active competition.
NASCAR may be the big dog in terms of the number of races, sponsor participation, and even people at the track. But by no means is anything about modern stock car racing in any way relevant. A more important question might be why automakers continue pour hundreds of millions of dollars into NASCAR every year, but we'll leave that for another day.
All three of the current crop of pony cars compete in a wide variety of racing, from drags to ovals and road courses. Ford in particular has offered turnkey Mustang race cars for several years, and they've been very successful in a number of classes, including the NASCAR-owned Grand-Am series. In fact, fans watching the 2010 Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge will see Mustangs, Camaros, and at least one Dodge Challenger slugging it out on a regular basis.
Pratt & Miller racing currently runs a program in which it converts Grand-Am Pontiac GXP.Rs to Camaro bodies. Dodge Challengers can be found at many drag strips (along with innumerable Mustangs and Camaros). And let's not forget that NASCAR is running Challenger- and Mustang-branded stockers in a few Nationwide Series races this year as part of its own "Car of Tomorrow" program.
Admittedly, it would be nice to see a revival on the level of the old Trans Am series, with all three of these machines running in force, but journalists like Mr. Austen would do well to remove the NASCAR blinders before summarily dismissing the modern pony cars as being absent from today's racing scene. It's just not so.
Just about every automaker posted February sales gains compared to the same month in 2009, and industry-wide sales were up 13 percent for the month. Even Chrysler posted its first year over year gain for the first time in 25 months, albeit by a mere 399 units. So is everybody at the company's Auburn Hills, MI headquarters celebrating? We're guessing the answer is no... due to the fact that a knee-wobbling 58 percent of those sales came to fleet customers.
Automotive News is reporting that only 35,832 of those 84,449 sales were made to retail customers. That's not good, folks. In better times, Toyota would be disappointed if it only sold 35,000 Carmry sedans to retail customers. When AN asked Chrysler about its low sales for the month, a spokeswoman reportedly said, "Fleet sales were very strong this month, and our company sales reflect that." Big fleet sales will reportedly be temporary, though, as the company still eventually plans to allocate only 25 percent of its sales to fleets.
But while that's bad news for Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep dealers, the company is likely at least happy that fleet customers are buying again. When the economy hit the skids in the fall of 2008, the fleet market went from a sales oasis for domestic automakers to a discount desert. Chrysler isn't the only automaker to rely on fleet sales in February, either. General Motorsallocated 45,000 of its 144,000 vehicles to fleets, about 31 percent of its total sales.
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