Although Chrysler has several wrinkles to iron out in its North American operations, eliminating product overlap is a key priority for the Michigan automaker. Chrysler is moving to get all three of its brands –Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep — under one dealership roof, which makes like-vehicles more redundant than ever. The new direction will see more than a few models ride off into the sunset, the first of which will either be the Dodge Nitro of Jeep Liberty .
According to Steven Landry, Chrysler ’s vice president of North American sales, the two SUV models will merge within three years. “If you put sales of Liberty and Nitro together, it’s doing what we want it to do,” Landry told the Toledo Blade. “As we move toward 2012, we won’t have this dual branding.”
Of the two, the Liberty remains the most popular, with 4,654 sales in August. The Nitro tallied 1,991 sales last month. Both figure are down compared to the same month last year, but are actually more the 20 percent better than July’s results.
Industry experts have long expected the slow-selling Nitro to get the ax, and it looks like its time may be coming. Chrysler new design head, Ralph Gilles, has also said that Chrysler’s look will move from ‘edge’ to ‘organic’, further indicating that the Nitro is not long for the world.
