Wild Ass Rumor of the Day: Chrysler to Crush Hybrid SUVs
You may recall that Chrysler shut down the factory producing Hemi Hybrid Dodge Durangos and Chyrsler Aspens— despite ChyrCo spinmeister Scott Brown’s absurd contention that they had plenty of orders for same. Wee a GM hybrid guy talking to a Chryco hybrid guy told one of our guys that the ailing (as in zombie) American automaker built 400 gas – electric Durango/Aspens. Which are now headed for the crusher. Apparently, Chrysler doesn’t want to support only 400 vehicles in the system. Crushing vehicles is no biggie for an automaker; early press and other pre-production vehicles are routinely destroyed to avoid liability problems. This is the first time I’ve heard of a post-production vehicle suffering the same fate. You know; if you exclude the EV1.
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"This is the first time I've heard of a post-production vehicle suffering the same fate. You know; if you exclude the EV1." This is unusual but not unheard of. Citroen, notably, have done it twice - once with the GS Birotor (around 700 built, most were bought back and crushed to prevent having to supply them with spares), and later with the Group B BX 4TC. Two hundred or so were built for homologation purposes, plus another 20 Evo versions; around three-quarters of the total production run was bought back and scrapped, either because (depending on who's telling the tale) they were desperately unreliable, or because Citroen was so embarrassed by the car's pathetic performance in competition that they wanted to erase all official record of its existence... Oh, and the Chrysler hybrids? Strapping the execs in gets a thumbs-up from me.
I hate to start a post with "According to Wikipedia...", but I must. They say that the Nissan Van (sold in the States for a brief interval late in the 1980s, looking like the Toyota Van and Mitsubishi Vanwagon) suffered the same fate, because of fires. All of them were recalled, and then all of them were destroyed. I don't know if it's true or not -- several internet forums do mention it -- but I do know that you can't find one for sale (not that I'd buy one).
Farce. Lee Iaccoca already has his Aspen Hybrid. If they were looking to crush them so they didn't have to support them, it's too late now. In fact, you guys covered it! http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/chrysler-sells-its-first-aspen-hybrid-to-lee-iacocca/
They'll simply recall and crush Iaccoca's as well, considering he got it 'free'/comped. As Chryco is currently offering a lifetime powertrain warrantee with every crap vehicle they put out, electing to crush rather than supporting these hybrids for decades to come is probably a sound financial decision.