Dodge Caliber
Watching TV last night, I saw a commercial for a car I was completely unfamiliar with – the Dodge Caliber. Looked kind of interesting – nice small crossover, not too big, Gen-X options like Bluetooth enabled, a cooler in the glove compartment, and a jack for your iPod. So I swung over to the Dodge site to check out the details. I’m impressed! On paper it looks really good… the R/T is 175 HP, Continuously Variable Transaxle (no individual gearing) mated to an AWD system for under $20,000. This is a Dodge! Innovation from an American company! Holy crap! Optioned out I was still under $23k. I’m going to have to visit a Dodge dealership and check one of these things out in person.
Of course… I could hold out for the 300HP SRT4 version not yet released. Hmm…
Yeah, definitely would wait on the SRT-4! That thing will hit 60 in about 5.5 seconds… Actually, since the merger it’s Daimler-Chrysler and they have moved their HQ from Detroit to Germany (partly due to American taxes) instead of migrating the German HQ over here. Kind of sad… But it’s still made here and they have a large presence. I really like the Caliber as well from reading about it. Wonder how much it will run? =)
A friend of mine here at work just got one. It’s pretty cool! Typically, plasticky interior though, but the boom box in the rear hatch and the cool zone for the drinks are nice features! He got his for about $17K for the 4 cylinder.
Mike’s right. The interior is sheer, boring, crappy-feeling plastic. Loads of it. An ocean of patterned grey.
It wouldn’t matter if the car was around 12-16k. But a nicely equipped one goes for about 20k, and for that money, I found it unacceptable.
But if DCX stuck a CDI engine in that bugger, I’d reconsider.