I doubt it. The current high prices for 60s muscle cars reflects a lot of guys trying to buy their youth back at the auction. Unfortunately while cars can be restored to better-than-new condition, the human body is pretty much on a one way downhill road from age 18 onward. Very few of today’s teenagers are going to be longing for the good old days of a 2008 Challenger in the decades ahead. Today’s muscle car bidders will be, to put it nicely, mostly out of the market 20 years from now.

Someday it will probably be highly modified Honda Civics and full-tilt Subaru WRXs which bring crazy high prices at the vintage car auctions. You have to have wanted one as a teenager in order to pay big bucks for it when you are in your 50s.

That is true for the entire line of bread and butter products (the forte of the peanut butter testers at CR), but how about the Jeep (Wranglers) and the Challenger? You know, the products bought by people who don’t treat car purchases like buying a Maytag? These two hit their target pretty accurately, even if they are hobbled a bit by the Playskool interior plastics and in the case of the Challenger, poor timing. And by the way, there is plenty of respect for the HEMI in the marketplace. Chrysler owes no one a scrap of apology for that one. Too bad it doesn’t have much in the way of vehicles to be installed in. But hey, the yards in the future will be full once again with great engines for project cars, at least for those with mechanical aptitude that can be translated into hardware, not just on paper.

Depreciation, the killer of all things Chrysler, will not touch the Challenger, at least not in the long term. Any 2008 Challenger kept in good condition could find its way to Barrett-Jackson in thirty years and return many times its purchase price. And the highest prices will be paid for those cars with the HEMI, which of course would be all 2008’s.

Just for fun I went to see how much a Challenger would set me back. Not interested in actual purchase (I don’t do automatics in my fun-only car purchases) but was curious what the scum of the earth dealer network would do. First I went on line to see if I could get a quote. 24 hours later and no response from the Chrysler sanctioned web site. So I tried again with my wife’s email address. Same dealer, only this time I indicated I wanted a Ram pickup. They responded to that one in 20 minutes. Next I went to the dealership and was told that test drives were not available without pre-approval from the sales manager. This included coughing up private info, no doubt to check on credit scores. Two cars were for sale, with a notice on the window indicating that an “ADM” was in effect. To find out how much, they require you to meet with the sales chap in a back room, you know the one they put you in to push rustproofing and all that crap. At that point I left knowing that in two years the dealership building will be for sale no matter how badly the early adopters will be hosed…

Or we might say Chrysler is channeling Wimpy and saying “If you give me a hamburger today I will gladly pay you Tuesday.”

50merc: “So it seems the gas card’s target market is the group that’s way over to the left on the bell curve.”

Probably the same market for whom the axiom “The lottery is a tax for people who are bad at math” was intended.

It’s a real shame that this is the best that Cerberus can come up with to save the company. It’s extremely weak, to say the least. They’re going to find that American consumers aren’t half as dumb as they think they are and they’re going to be inundated with lots of unsold vehicles to the point where they’re going to have no choice but to have a real fire sale to get rid of any of them. Gimmicks like $2.99/gal gas isn’t going to cut it. Slashing 50% off of MSRP (for starters) might move some iron (even iron as craptacular as what Chrysler produces).

He might be in the market for a bridge if you have a good deal on one.

I should have been more specific. My words were aimed at the current product line. I will not take back my original intention. Jeeps current line is a failing, miserable, excuse for what JEEP once stood for. Can you tell me which current model Jeep has the inline six 4.0 liter you speak so highly of? One time Jeep fan, now no way.

Ryan

Makes me wonder. At what price of gas does the 2.99 gas card become worth it? $7/gallon? $10/gallon? there must be a break-even point.. right?

It’s probably a complicated calculation. If gasoline were $10/gallon, a low-end vehicle that guzzled gas would have very low resale value after 3 years. You might be hit with $14000 vehicle depreciation on a vehicle with only 36,000 miles. That’s 39 cents per mile right there.

Worse would be if gasoline were $4 right now but increased by $1/gallon each year. Then you are only getting the $2.99 deal when gasoline is the least expensive. I think that the fine print also notes that you have to take 12000 miles worth of fuel each year; you can’t wait 2.9 years and then stand at the gas station pump selling your $2.99 gasoline at the very end (when gasoline might be considerably more costly than it is now).

test (thanks KixStart)

I know two friends who have TJ Wranglers who are at ~100k and ~140k without issue.

My step mom had a 86 XJ Limited and the power train never gave much trouble in its 150k life. Now the electrical system is another story.

Its fuel efficency is more a function of the design paramaters of a Jeep or other capable off road vehicle: gearing, larger tires and the drag losses from a 4WD system

Actually, it’s a big wonder that some percentage still DO choose the gas car.

I’d like to meet those people. I have things I want to sell which I believe they can be conned into persuaded to buy.

Car companies as well as their dealers are pragmatic – they do these ’semi-deceptive’ offers because 1)they work, and 2)collectively, we like it that way.

It’s a business model that depends on a uninformed customer – which is getting tougher and tougher each year, however, as long as there are customers (like my mother) they will pander to lowest common denominator.

There might be an easier way but I don’t know what it is. And my way’s easy enough that I’m not motivated to hunt for a better method.