Even though the Plymouth brand that spawned it is dying, Chrysler will keep building
Prowler roadsters while demand remains strong, Bloomberg News reported.
"As long as the market remains strong, we don’t see any reason to end
production," director of marketing for Chrysler-brand cars Steve Bartoli
told Bloomberg as the 10,000th hand-built Prowler rolled out of a Detroit factory
on Tuesday. Production of the $US44,625 cars will continue "indefinitely,"
he added.
Bloomberg said that DaimlerChrysler had discussed killing off the hot rod lookalike
Prowler when the Plymouth brand is phased out from the end of this week.
The Prowler was launched as a Plymouth in 1997 and became a Chrysler in January,
Bloomberg said. U.S. sales rose 11 percent last year to 2,631, though they fell
31 percent to 941 this year to the end of May following the brand change.
Monthly sales have climbed back to the 200 to 300 the company needs, Bartoli
told Bloomberg.
However, Michael Wall, a senior auto analyst for Irn Inc. in Grand Rapids,
Michigan, told Bloomberg News that D-C probably won’t build Prowlers after 2003
because a new Dodge Viper model is due for 2003 and he expects Chrysler will
want to dump the Prowler to put more resources behind the new car.
Chrysler wouldn’t comment on that, Bloomberg said.
Other sources say that the LH platform on which the Prowler is built will be
phased out in 2004, leaving Chrysler the choice of adapting it to a new platform,
or keeping it running on the current platform, both expensive options.
Bloomberg News said the Prowler and Viper are hand-built at the Conner Avenue
Assembly Plant in Detroit.
Employees build 14 Prowlers a day, or 280 a month, Larry Marino, senior manager
of product and quality assurance at the factory, told Bloomberg.
The last car built under the Plymouth brand is scheduled to come off the line
on Thursday, Bloomberg News said. The historic Neon will be made at the company’s
Belvidere, Illinois, plant.
