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2020 Chrysler 300 gets new colors, a new package, and new prices

Although the Chrysler 300 is doing a pretty good impression of a listless, drifting ghost ship, there are product planners at the helm, and they have giveth and taken away for the 2020 model year. As with the last time we got news about the 300, some of this comes from Mopar Insiders instead of Fiat Chrysler, and it appears the Chrysler build site hasn't caught up to everything yet. Perhaps most important to prospective buyers, which is reflected on the build page, prices have risen anywhere from $50 to $370 across the lineup. The 2020 prices and the changes compared to 2019 are: Touring RWD, $29,590 (+$120) Touring AWD, $32,340 (+$370) Touring L RWD, $33,115 (Unchanged) Touring L AWD, $35,865 (+$250) S RWD, $36,695 (+$50) Limited RWD, $38,595 (+$100) S AWD, $39,445 (+$300) Limited AWD, $41,345 (+$350) C RWD, $41,995 (+$50) The Sport Appearance Package on the Touring trim needs a little more money, too, going from $1,295 to $1,495. The package puts on a 300S grille with a black chrome surround, gloss black window surrounds, black headlight bezels, black LED taillights, bright chrome wing badges with black inserts, and 20-inch Black Noise wheels on the RWD model, 19-inchers on the AWD. From last year's palette of eight colors, two are no more: Maximum Steel and Ceramic Grey. Frostbite, a popular white offered on the Dodge Challenger and Charger, has been added to the 300's choices. New hues Amethyst and Canyon Sunset will be added but are late availability. Inside, Black/Linen and Mocha interior colors increase the choice. The $475 Interior Appearance Group that brought features like bright pedals and premium floor mats has been done away with, too. The build site doesn't show the Red S Appearance Package for the 300S trim, but it's a thing. The option includes Black Noise exterior badging with red inserts on the wing badge, a red "S" badge on the decklid, and 20-inch Black Noise wheels on the RWD model. It can be paired with a new Radar Red interior which is also nowhere to be found on the configurator. The Red S Appearance Package can be paired with any exterior color except Frostbite, and costs $295.

The Hemi deserves to die | Opinion

Hi. I'm Byron and I love V8s. I want them to stick around for a long, long time. But not all V8s are created equal, and I will not mourn the passing of the modern Hemi. You shouldn't either. While we may agree that its death is untimely, if you ask me, that's only because it came far too late.  Stellantis’ announcement of its new, turbocharged inline-six that is all but guaranteed to kill off the Hemi V8 has led to quite a few half-baked internet takes. The notion being suggested by some, that automotive media were brainwashed into believing the Hemi was in need of replacement, is so far divorced from reality that I openly guffawed at the notion. Journalists have been challenging Chrysler, FCA and now Stellantis for years to deliver better high-performance engines. The response has always been the same: “Why?” Why replace a heavy V8 with a lighter, all-aluminum one? Why repackage powertrains for smaller footprints and better handling vehicles? Why be better when “good enough” sells really, really well? I too mourn the departure of good gasoline-burning engines, but since when was the Hemi one? HereÂ’s a quiz: Name every SRT model with an all-aluminum engine. TimeÂ’s up. If you named any, you failed. They donÂ’t exist. This isnÂ’t GMÂ’s compact, lightweight small-block, nor is it a DOHC Ford Coyote that at least revs high enough to justify its larger footprint. The Hemi is an overweight marketing exercise that happened to be in the right place at the right time. That time was 2003, when Chrysler was still Chrysler — except it was Daimler-Chrysler and the "merger of equals" was doing a bang-up job of bleeding the company's cash reserves dry while doing virtually nothing to address its mounting legacy costs. "That thang got a Hemi?" was emblematic of the whimsical, nostalgia-driven marketing of the colonial half of the "marriage made in heaven." That was 20 years ago. 20 years prior to that, emissions-choked American V8s were circling the drain faster than a soapy five-carat engagement ring in a truck stop sink.

Chrysler investing $20M in Toledo plant to support 9-speed auto production

In 2011, Chrysler announced a $72-million investment in its Toledo Machining Plant to modernize production of the eight- and nine-speed torque-converters for automatic transmissions made there. That upgrade work won't be finished until Q3 of this year, but Chrysler has already announced a further $19.6-million investment to increase production capacity for the nine-speeders.
The extra units will be necessary because the nine-speed transmission they'll be mated to is going into three popular models: it will debut on the 2014 Jeep Cherokee, then go into the Chrysler 200 and Dodge Dart. The company predicted that this year alone it would sell 200,000 units equipped with the nine-speed tranny, and it is spending some $374 million in addition to the investment in Toledo to upgrade production capacity for it.
The work attached to this new investment won't begin until Q3 of 2014, and it will be finished by the end of that year. There's a press release below with all the details.