Ktulu is totally right. The girl completely draws your attention away from the interior of the Caliber, and that’s a good thing. I’m not too fond of this new interior. It still looks like a 10-year-old plastic truck.

Especially the grille/headlights. Too big. It’s not a Dodge Ram for Christ’s sake; why does Dodge have to have everything look like that?

We drove a 2005 Caliber to the beach over the weekend. I like the car… roomy, nice highway ride… but I can’t stand the transmission. It’s like a bad case of turbo lag, you have to think 3 seconds ahead. Mash the gas, count to three while the CVT picks the right ratio, then the car accelerates. Makes maneuvering on the highway or pulling out in traffic a complete nightmare. It was also horrible in 20MPH traffic on the beach strip… it can’t hold a slow speed, so when you let off the gas it either goes for a higher ratio and slows you down, or stays in the low ratio and you coast. You never know what is going to happen next… and I find unpredictability in an automobile to be very unnerving. A traditional automatic would be much nicer.

Let’s get some Italian seasoning over to this boring American dish.

Diesel Caliber. US market. 2010. Good F/econ. If you don’t mind..

The Caliber can be given a more sporting edge than it has now. I don’t think I ever said that the car had to compete directly with the WRX of EVO. But on that note, The EVO X, in case you missed it out live outside the NA auto market, costs around $40K. The Rallisport would be more about what I’m talking about, about $25K. The Impreza WRX (I can see why they called it that. Subaru couldn’t decide whether to make the car a family car or a race car. It used to be Impreza or WRX: Pick your poison.) is just a shadow of it’s former self. Only the STi is worth discussing and it still falls notably short of the “Mini GT-R” that is the EVO X.

A middle of the sporty 4-door CALIBER AWD “Rally” would fit in nicely in with the Lancer Rallisport and the Impreza WRX. You are right that it is not likely to happen, like the AVENGER STORMTROOPER. But it would be more like it for a car that decidedly looks the part.

The Viper can handle, and I’m not talking about the ACR. The problem is that the only VIPER vids anyone really ever sees are the ones with the VIPER drag racing or crashing. They never see the ones with the VIPER handing a hard corner like a slot car, in the hands of a competent driver. It does lead to some perception issues. And I do understand that the CHRYSLER will not be saved by $90K, 1500 units a year, sports cars. But again it is a perception issue. Why would anyone buy a car for that much that can’t handle? Thing is, it can but unless you drove one hard you would never know.

The CHALLENGER is a simple matter of a simple suspension update. It happens, or used to, all the time a decade ago. A car goes a couple of years and gets revised shocks, springs, and sway bars. Its not a big thing for cost. Or they can do what FORD does for the MUSTANG: $1500 for the race pack and the your ‘STANG becomes, at least by virtue of handling, a race car. The CHALLENGER would be better served by a simple update through.

And seriously do you think that tuners sell tuned CHALLENGERS for cost? Do you really think it costs $50K to tune a CHALLENGER? Do you how much it would cost to update the CHALLENGER Base, SXT, and R/T? About $2500 a piece. Subtract cost of parts no longer being used and it is maybe $250. One of the biggest irks about upgrade packages is that you typically have to pay for the parts that were put on the car before the new parts were added. You are buying shocks and springs and brakes you are NOT using on top of the better parts you are. Run out the old parts and use new ones and the cost of improvement is minimal.

Cost is not so much the issue. But inaction. CHRYSLER can do better for relatively little and make huge gains. Stop buying the parts that aren’t working and, like I said, run them out and used better parts.

“You have to spend money to make money.” A simple law of investment.

Fiat will no doubt fix this. They’d better hurry. Just look at the sales numbers for the Focus. Obviously it doesn’t take much to be successful in this segment.

Caliber Rally — I see where you are going with this, but it won’t sell. Subaru and Mitsu have a pedigree on the WRX and Evo for rally racing, Dodge doesn’t. So I just don’t see a $25k-30k caliber tuned to compete with those 2 to do so well.

Viper — yes its scary. But its not all about fast 0-60, its about how you take corners (without dying). Also its clearly a limited market car that won’t save CryCo…..not a bad “attainable halo” tough along the lines on NSX. GTR and ZR1.

Callanger — you said it yourself, you’re fine on straights but will die on your first corner. The reason why it doesn’t handle as well is because RR and Bently work on $100K+ budget per car (and millions more in R&D). Dodge’s budget isn’t quite as massive. If a tuner puts in some time (and $$$) it can be fixed, but it won’t come like that from the factory because it wiill cost more than that type of car demands on the market.

There you go man, economics.

“You get more Flies with Honey (colored leather)…”

Seriously, adding aluminum and upping the quality are a major pluses, but work on the colors. Dark gray just is not doing it for me.

After that, get some people on making the Caliber a more positively exciting vehicle. I mean really it looks like it could be a rally car, especially with the AWD. Understand that a most people want a kick-ass car off the lot. They just don’t want to or can’t afford to set it up in a garage for a few months to get it up to stuff. This goes for the Challenger as well.

Despite what some of these people will say the VIPER is a totally whup-em car. It is scary fast and handles like a race car (Quite the opposite of a GT-R35 which is more like a racing game on easy mode). Weak and under or unskilled drivers, however, need not apply.

The Challenger gets good marks across the board until you start the take a corner. If Rolls and Bentley can get a 5200lb car to handle like it weighs about 3800lbs, I would think DODGE can make it happen for a 4200 lbs car. Tuner Challengers are like a dream come true, so why can’t they be like that from the factory?

The Caliber has potential but it is buried and marred under deeply polarizing styling (Note I never will claim to like the cars looks. I actually like the current WRX. shows how OMG that IS bad the Caliber styling is), less than spectacular performance (F/econ, 0-60, 60-0, handling, et al), and the interior (I HATE gray!).

Chrysler is sitting on great talent and they make great cars… If only they would act like they are great cars and make it so and stop coming up short because… that’s a problem I don’t know how to finish that sentence. They have no reason to keep coming up short like this.

why do they look similar? get away from the bubble center stack…

@mopar…. to each their own. CVTs seem to be a polarizing thing. I for one actually really like the CVT in my nissan. Also I really like my nissan. Every ChryCo product I have ever driven feels like a boat inside a retarded sperm whale.

Good Day

Still nicer than say…Scion Xb or Nissan Cube interior.

Thank goodness! Now sales will really take off

Pointless feature for an outdated halogen headlamps.

Somebody should tell Dodge that its interiors looked better in the 90s than they do now.