The exterior of the Sebring needs a major restyling (front, rear, and C-pillar). The Avenger’s exterior just needs minor tweaks. I think altering some of the exterior styling will also help draw attention to the improvements made to the interiors of these cars.

The cars need a five or six speed automatic transmission with the base four cylinder engine (a six speed manual option probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for the Avenger).

I would also make sure the ride is tweaked to provide a good balance between sportiness and comfort (biased towards sportiness for the Avenger and comfort for the Sebring).

If Chrysler seriously wants to attempt to jump back into the midsize sedan game with these products, then they need to address all the shortcomings of these products. If they don’t, then I’m afraid that they still won’t make much of an impact on the market.

…and don’t take this the wrong way. My gawd, all of us on LLN have to deal with LP640. Although I firmly believe there are two people posting under the same identity in his/her case.

If FORD gets back into the game (big if at this point) you know they will stomp some. Though I would seriously consider a totally new engine and not some rebuild truck block like the FORD GT has.

Lackluster,

I would think not so much a competitor but an alternative. Something like this car. A custom job but definitely what I would want for the SRT version.
http://www.seriouswheels.com/cars/2007/top-2007-Dodge-Avenger-Tuner-Stormtrooper.htm

But then the Z06 came out. The Viper had it’s day a looong time ago. It needs a lot of work. Brute power is nice, but there’s a lot more to a car than how many HP it can put out.

“The reason for this drastic move is the particularly poor reception of the public and the press to the interiors of the Sebring and Avenger, which have been described as ugly and cheap.”
They waited until the damn cars were on the market before they realized the interiors were ugly and cheap. Way to go!

“Dying on the vine” is one thing. These cars were stillborn.

cwwilson: the only thing more quintessentially American than a Viper is a Hummer.

Comment by johnnycanuck: the problem is, the ’Vette (kind of) sells Malibus and Cobalts. ChryCo gets no benefit from that.

cookie4me: “I can’t believe they thought they could build these cars and compete.” Ditto.

TomF: ‘fix it fast or kill it.” I say kill it, and come up with an entirely new midsizer.

One thing that has typically gotten cars killed these days is a lack of pricing flexibility. The Pontiac GTO didn’t do well because of it (In part, then again it was an old poorly adapted car). The Viper could certainly benefit by it.

The “G3 VIPER” would also need to be something other than a muscle car, but a real serious racing street car. Not that it isn’t but the car could also stand to be used in more high profile sports car races. GM fielded their own CORVETTE racing team. Why isn’t Chyrsler doing the same for their VIPER?

The issue with the Viper is its price. While it’s a crude car and made to make a statement which it does quite well it’s the fact that it sells at an extremely low volume and probably isn’t a major profit mover for Dodge (although that was never its purpose)

And seeing that Cerberus is a private equity firm they are coming in and making decisions mostly based on $ figures, so to them killing off the viper isn’t going to be a big deal to them.

What Dodge needs is what Chevy has with the Corvette, a higher volume lower priced sports car. If I was calling the shots over at Chrysler I would keep the Viper name but re-design it, maybe drop the V10 (oh my) and put in Dodge’s 6.1L V8 do a complete overhaul of the vehicle, keep the exterior looks as aggressive as possible and vastly improve the interior, get rid of the side exhaust and move them back to the rear, and come out with a a base Viper with a V8 that would be similiarly priced to a base Corvette. Then offer the V10 on the higher end Viper to compete with the ZO6 or now the ZR1 and give that the ACR badge or create something like the Viper Venom or something. At least Dodge may be able to save the Viper in this case

As for the Viper, I hate to say it, but whatever. The Vette carries the halo for best sports car and looks the part. The Viper always was a little too prepubescent for my tastes.