if i had my choose of any car by any company, i would get nothing and wait for the charger. that is exactly what i want in a car. a good looking powerful sedan. the mustang is a coupe, ford, and not good looking or powerful. the 300c is a great car, don't get me wrong, but thats not my type of styling. the charger appeals to me much much more. i may be unique, but i hope alot of kids my age share my opinion. as for my dislike of coupes, try to get 4 teenagers in a car. it is a pain in the *** to put down the front seat and move it around and crap, and then a even bigger pain getting the seat back to your comfort position, and then going through it again 10 minutes later when we get where we are trying to go. think bout it.

 

Here's what the DC designers need to do. Keep the Stratus RT body, but lose the mistu****ty undercarriage and drivetrain. Put a rear drive configuration in it. Use the 4.7L HO, offer a manual or auto 5 spd., use the dakota rear with 3.55 gears and LSD. Put more of an emphasis on the suspension to optimize handling similar to the traits found in the Crossfire.

 

Those sales volumes seem off to me. At allpar.com they say total sales of the Sebring/Stratus SEDANS is about 200,000/yr -- the Autoweek article implies that the COUPES are getting that kind of level (Allpar says the sedans outsell the coupes 4 to 1.) Seems to me the coupes could survive just fine at 200k/yr. The Monte Carlo gets by at 60k or so.

I've been thinking about the demise of the midsize/large coupe for a while. I like big 2-door cars. I have one. I think it's both that the existing cars are unappealing and that in general there's just a lack of a market. Even just 10 years ago you had some choices for an affordable, US-made larger 2-door car -- the T-bird or Cougar from Ford; Grand Prix, Regal, Cutlass Supreme, and Monte Carlo from GM; and the then-new Sebring and Avenger at Mopar. (I'm ignoring cars like the new GTO and the Mustang since those two are in their own performance class and aren't particularly useful doing sedan-level people-and-stuff-hauling like the other cars were.)

In the last 10 years it seems Ford decided to run their 2 nameplates into the ground by going retro (T-bird -- where do they go next? Bring back the 1958 "Squarebird" 4-seater?) or chasing Celica and Eclipse buyers (who were probably scared off by the terrible reliabilty of the Contour/Mistake... er. Mystique! platform. $3 billion down the drain for WHAT?!?) Generic Motors killed a coupe or two every time they redesigned the sedans they shared platforms with -- now the Monte's all that's left.

So here we have the Monte Carlo "the winningest active nameplate in Nascar!" (relation to road car: approximately 2 components out of about 3000) and the Avenger er I mean Stratus/Sebring. The Monte is one of the worst looking cars GM's ever inflicted on us in my opinion. But the Stratus/Sebring don't exactly make my heart race either. Some of my friends have the 1st gen Sebring and it's a nice car but I like my RWD V8's too much. And I'm already driving the last affordable midsize/large 2-door RWD V8 car there was on our market. Argh.

 

Biggest thing is that the people who buy 2 door cars (such as myself) are younger people without kids. Most of us are just starting out in life, which explains the no family or kids, and don't have the $$$ to drop on a brand new car. We almost always buy them used. The second-owner market for 2-doors is HUGE. But the auto makers don't see a dime of that money and therefore don't care about that segment of the market. If the prices on new vehicles would come back to freaking reality, I'd be much more apt to buy a brand new car. Probably still wouldn't because of the depreciation and the fact that I can get year-old lease returns for 30%-40% under sticker... lol

Here's a little comparison on why I DON'T buy new cars. An average new car is about mid-$20k (I'm 6'3ish with bad knees, need a big car). A 300C is $30k+. My dad bought his current truck (fullsize 4wd longbed, auto trans, heavy duty equipment package) for $14k in 1991. Mom just bought a 2004 Grand Cherokee lease return, 1 year old with 16,000 miles, sticker was $32k and she paid $24k. My dad's also got a Lincoln that was 1 year old with 17,000 miles when he got it, sticker was $46k and he paid $28.

Ok, I got a little off topic. But the first paragraph sums up my point.

 

I love it when car manufacturers build crappy 2 door cars that no one wants then blame consumers when they don't sell. For example gm has kept the f body around for years with no changes and poor quality then blames consumers for not buying them. Chevy mone carlo seems to sell well even if its not v8 powered. I had one as a rental and loved it. It seem to me that honda and others are doing pretty well with 2 door models. I think it has nothing to do with the number of doors.