USA Today - May 16, 2000
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PT Cruiser drives some buyers wild
Chrysler car proves that small autos can stir drivers' passion
By Earle Eldridge and James R. Healey, USA TODAY
Joann and Jim Filomena of the Bronx, N.Y., used their home computer to track the progress of her new car from a plant in Mexico to a local dealer.
Patti Grulke of Virginia, Minn., has dreams about the car she ordered but probably won't get until next year.
All these seemingly normal people have an abnormal passion for the newest hot ride on the road, the Chrysler PT Cruiser.
Its retro 1930s styling gives it the head-turning, feel-good looks of the Volkswagen New Beetle. Its $16,000 starting price gives it the same relatively stingy price tag.
And its explosive start in the market is the latest, most dramatic clue that automakers have found a way to popularize small vehicles that U.S. buyers generally loathe: dramatic styling at low prices. Cruiser, Beetle and Ford's popular Focus economy car all follow that formula - successfully so far.
And PT (for personal transportation) Cruiser is causing a mania that easily rivals what the New Beetle stirred up just two years ago.
New Beetle burst onto the scene April 1998, notching 4,852 sales the first month. Cruiser, coming from a factory with nearly twice VW's capacity, recorded 8,322 sales last month, its first on the market.
"People are just crazy about it," George Peterson of AutoPacific, an automotive consulting firm, says of the Cruiser. "They are gushing all over it."
"It's like some kind of giant toy," Jim Filomena says of his wife's silver Cruiser, ordered in February and delivered last week. "It's such a joy to see guys in Mercedes and Jaguars craning their necks to see it."
Cruiser fans are paying to satisfy their craving. Some dealers are demanding thousands of dollars more than sticker price. Some customers are putting up $1,000 or $2,000 deposits for the privilege of waiting months for delivery.
People are buying PT Cruisers before taking a test drive. Some are buying it sight unseen.
Where their blind faith is taking them is into an underpowered, quirky-handling machine that soon will lose the very distinctiveness making it popular. DaimlerChrysler keeps cranking up production in response to the hysteria. Originally planned for 50,000 U.S. sales a year, Cruiser's Toluca, Mexico, factory is being pushed toward 200,000, and a plant is being readied in Graz, Austria, to build more for overseas markets.
DaimlerChrysler isn't blind. The company is telling dealers that Cruiser prices will rise as much as 4% on top models July 24 - a hike of about $800. Specific amounts will be announced shortly. Entry models will go up 1% to 2%, or about $200. That, even though DaimlerChrysler President James Holden told USA TODAY in a May 3 interview: "We don't want to head down the road that says, 'This thing is red hot, and we can price for it.'"
DaimlerChrysler defends the move, saying the biggest increases are on vehicles that will have fancier features, such as heated seats. And, says DaimlerChrysler, production is sold out through July, so people ordering now need to be warned about higher prices. Those who've ordered already aren't supposed to have to pay the higher prices.
Cruiser began as merely a way to leverage investment and get another model off the hardware used for the Neon small car. Instead, "It's a radical departure from Neon," says Frank Frederick, chassis and powertrain director in charge of the greasy bits underneath. The suspension, for instance, is like Neon only where and how it mounts to the vehicle. The engine comes from Chrysler minivans, not from Neon.
And whereas Neon's a car, Cruiser, with a flat cargo floor, removable back seats and enough ground clearance for steep inclines, is a truck by government standards.
The details seem to matter little to the true believers, who can't stop talking about Cruiser.
"We're having so much fun, you almost feel guilty about it," says Filomena, whose wife was attracted to the retro styling, hatchback and removable rear seat.
"Some people inside our company say there hasn't been anything like it since the original (Ford) Mustang," Holden says. The Mustang launched in 1964 to such enthusiasm that people slept outside dealerships waiting for them to open.
But that was then, and this is 2000, so, naturally, Cruiser frenzy is most apparent on the Internet.
Men and woman who never cared about cars are joining online Cruiser clubs before they own one, adopting chat-room nicknames like PTPatti and Cruiserless.
Michael Challis, of Long Beach, Wash., is an award-winning Chrysler dealer technician who founded PT Cruiser Club in September. He and his wife, Cindy, also created the PT Cruiser Club Web site, ptcruiserclub.org. The club's annual dues are $39, and Challis says his membership has gone from about 470 in March to more than 1,000, with about 15 new members joining each day. "There is a lot of camaraderie among PT Cruiser lovers," says Challis, who expects delivery of an inferno red Cruiser in July. "It brings out so many emotions."
He says Cruiser rallies, meets and charity runs already are scheduled in Pennsylvania, Kansas, Nevada and Florida. Amazing, considering that the car has been on sale for only a month.
The Internet is what allowed Joann Filomena, armed with the number of the rail car carrying her Cruiser, to track it from the factory in Mexico that builds them. "Part of the fun has been tracking it to the rail yard through the Internet."
No surprise that the Net action has turned up on auction site eBay.
Paul Buico of Mars, Pa., was hooked on Cruiser the moment he saw it on a Web site. He ordered using Autobytel.com, an Internet auto-buying service. After a two-month wait, he took delivery May 2. But then, people started asking him to sell it. So, "I said, 'Let me see what I can get.'"
Buico, who paid about $22,000 for his loaded red Cruiser, listed it on eBay with a minimum bid requirement of $30,000. "People were sending me e-mails and calling to cuss me out. They said, 'How could you be so greedy?'"
The highest offer Buico got was $27,000, but he's decided to keep his Cruiser. "It's fantastic. When I went to the bank, I came out, and 10 or 15 people were standing around it."
Buico may have pulled the car, but eBay still is loaded with a long list of Cruiser-related items for sale. A PT Cruiser basket, which looks like a wooden picnic basket, was sent to each dealer as a promotional item. An eBay seller has one listed for $280. Also available are mouse pads, accessory catalogs, die-cast miniature models, sunglasses, coasters, press kits, watches, water bottles, CD carrying cases, key chains and coffee mugs.
Products like those may help pass the time for people like Grulke, who ordered her red Cruiser April 5.
Recently, she had a nightmare that someone vandalized her Cruiser . In the dream, she says, "I trudged home to tell my husband about the damage, and we comforted each other by saying 'Hey, at least we have a PT Cruiser.'"
When she placed the order, her small-town local dealer told her she should take delivery in 10 months. Smaller, lower-volume dealers have the longest waits.
Reports of price gouging are rampant, but Holden insists it's rare. "The stories of dealers overgrossing on PT Cruisers are wildly exaggerated. There are some loan sharks out there, but most dealers are doing it right," he says.
Jack Fitzgerald, owner of Fitzgerald Automalls in suburban Washington, D.C., claims he is one of the few dealers selling Cruisers at sticker price. " If you gouge people when things are hot, you won't have many friends when things get cold," he says. He has 102 Cruisers on order and is telling customers to expect a 16- to 22-week wait.
Meek, the Washington man who has so many pictures of his taupe Cruiser, delivered April 25, says he's been boxed in by police cars driven by officers wanting to take a look. And people have flagged him down to take pictures.
Meek says he likes the retro look and was hooked when he drove one. He's so hooked that he spent 11 hours one recent day at a Chrysler/Jeep dealer watching painters put custom flames on his Cruiser.
Odd behavior? Not to Meek.
"I'm beyond happy," he says. "I'm ecstatic."