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Chrysler and Hyundai join Pepsi and Coke as top Super Bowl spenders [w/ video]

Super Bowl XLVIII is barely a week away, and some of the early ads are already leaking out. It's timely then that The Street has released rankings of the top five Super Bowl advertisers since 2009, showing Chrysler and Hyundai/Kia taking two of the spots with $131.7 million in cumulative spending.
Since 2010, the cost to air a 30-second Super Bowl ad has risen from $3 million in 2009 to about $4 million in 2014, and about a fifth of advertisers opt for a one-minute ad, which doubles costs. Last year, the ads brought in $292 million, and they have brought in roughly $2 billion since 2010.
Chrysler has spent $64.3 million since 2009 to make it the fourth highest spending company in the last five years. In that time, the company has rebranded itself as it emerged from bankruptcy with the Imported from Detroit ad campaign that premiered in 2011 and last year's God Made a Farmer Ram Trucks ad. Its 2012 Halftime in America sparked national debate about whether it was also a reference to the upcoming presidential election.

Junkyard Gem: 1989 Chrysler TC by Maserati

Lee Iacocca's friendship with Alejandro de Tomaso went way back, and it led to the Ford-powered De Tomaso Pantera being born in 1971 (when Iacocca was running Ford). After Iacocca moved over to head Chrysler in 1978, he began working with de Tomaso (who owned Maserati by that point) to develop a sports coupe based on the Chrysler-salvation K-Car platform. It took quite a while, but eventually that car became reality: the Chrysler TC by Maserati (officially known as Chrysler's TC by Maserati). Some 7,300 were built through 1991, and I've found one of them in a Denver-area car graveyard. I've managed to document four of these cars in their final parking spots prior to this one, in wrecking yards in Colorado, California, and Wisconsin. The Chrysler's TC by Maserati does have a devoted following, but they can't save 'em all. The TC really was assembled by Maserati in Italy, but the underlying chassis was taken from the Dodge Daytona. The body bore a strong resemblance to that of the Chrysler LeBaron GTC, which was unfortunate considering the price difference between the two cars: the MSRP on the 1989 TC was $33,000, while the LeBaron GTC cost $17,435 (that's about $80,880 and $42,730 in 2022 dollars). The TC had three different engines driving the front wheels over its short lifetime: two varieties of turbocharged Chrysler 2.2 four-cylinder (one with 160 horsepower and one with a Cosworth cylinder head with 200 horsepower) and that good old workhorse of a Mitsubishi V6: the 6G72, with 141 horses. This car has the 160hp 2.2. The Cosworth-headed cars (500 were built) got a five-speed manual transmission, but the other 6,800 TCs got a Chrysler slushbox of either three or four speeds (this one is a three-speed). There was a lot of snobbish disapproval of the TC by the automotive press, but just look at that interior! Even the most over-the-top LeBaron never got this level of swank inside.  Every time I write about one of these cars, I hear that the factory hardtop roof is worth fantastic money… but four out of the five examples I've found in junkyards had the hardtop, and I think every single one went to the crusher with its car. How many miles? Not many! Maybe the speedometer cable broke in 1995. The radio and HVAC controls are straight LeBaron, but the wood and leather are the real thing.

2023 Chrysler 300 gets one new option, otherwise unchanged

Chrysler dropped the goss on the 2023 Chrysler 300 sedan, a bit of whispering that took barely half a minute to read. There is one change coming to next year's 300: The entry-level Touring trim gains the option of the SafeyTec Plus Group. That bundle of features includes advanced brake assist, rain-sensing windshield wipers, LaneSense Lane Departure Warning with Lane Keep Assist, ParkSense front and rear park assist, auto high-beam headlamp control, Full-speed Forward Collision Warning with Active Braking, adaptive cruise control (ACC) with stop, an Alpine audio system with six speakers and a 276-watt amplifier, and an 80-amp alternator. The package costs $2,495 on the next model up, the Touring L, which is probably close to what Chrysler will charge on the Touring. The other new news is a special edition inbound for next year, but the automaker hasn't divulged anything about it. Mopar Insiders says Chrysler will hold a special event at the Detroit Auto Show next week, perhaps we'll find out more then. For a car old enough to have transported Walter P. Chrysler to work and gets effectively zero support in a dying segment, the 300 still looks and performs well and sells adequately. Whereas the Dodge Charger has averaged about 78,000 sales in each of the past two years in the U.S., the 300 had averaged about 17,000 sales in each of the past two years. We'd love to see Chrysler do something — anything — with it before the rumored electric successor arrives. The brand has a huge revamp in the works, though, so we'd also understand Chrysler leaving the old girl in a corner to do her best. Prices haven't been announced yet. We'd expect nominal increases over the current range, which starts at $35,140 for the entry-level rear-wheel-drive Touring and tops out at $46,945 for the 300S with the Hemi V8 before incentives. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.