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Auto blog

MotorWeek retro review revisits the Chrysler PT Cruiser

I have a long history with the Chrysler PT Cruiser. My mom was working at Automobile magazine when it launched, and she brought home their long-term tester all the time. My buddy Adam's mom bought one in the early 2000s, and I drove it on many an occasion. When I left Winding Road in early 2010 and joined Autoblog, the car I got on Day 1 was... well, I think you can guess. I will never forget driving that 2010 PT Cruiser to a rest stop outside of Toledo, Ohio, to meet then editor-in-chief John Neff and buy his old camera. I will also never forget the look on Neff's face when he pulled into the parking lot in his 1991 Ford Taurus SHO, saw the PT, and started laughing. I have always hated this car. But when it launched around the turn of the millennium, it was a huge deal – not just for Chrysler, but for the industry. Retro styling was all the rage, and the PT had it in spades. On top of that, it was seriously functional – one of the first widely accepted tall hatchbacks in an era where Americans wanted sedans. MotorWeek has now dug up its original PT Cruiser review for its latest retro review offering. Watch the video above to see what the ever-charismatic John Davis and his crew thought of the PT way back when it was actually relevant.

Chrysler recalling hundreds of thousands of Jeep Grand Cherokee and Commander SUVs

The public might associated ignition switch recalls with General Motors - and with good cause - but that's not the only automaker calling its vehicles back in to fix that sort of issue.
Last month we reported that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was investigating an array of Chrysler Group vehicles for electrical-related safety issues. The administration and Chrysler subsequently issued a recall for 700,000 Dodge Journey crossovers, Dodge Grand Caravan minivans and Chrysler Town & Country minivans. But while the Jeeps that were also under investigation were not covered in that recall, they are being addressed in a separate one now.
Although Chrysler reports that it is only aware of a single accident stemming from this issue, it is "committing now to conduct a recall out of an abundance of caution." The recall affects the 2006-2007 Jeep Commander and 2005-2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee, of which it reports there are 792,300 on the road: 649,900 in the United States, 28,800 in Canada, 12,800 in Mexico and a further 100,800 outside of North America.

Chrysler slows minivan production, hasn't built VW Routan this year

Chrysler has slowed production of its Town and Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans this week, Automotive News reports. The Windsor, Ontario plant will cut its three shifts from eight hours each to four hours each in an effort "to align production with market demand," a Chrysler spokesperson told AN. Chrysler also builds the closely related Routan minivan for Volkswagen at its Ontario facility, but has not built a single example thus far in 2013.
Sales of Chrysler's minivans fell 15 percent for the first two months of 2013, and a large part of that has to do with the 26-percent drop of the Grand Caravan alone (the T&C was only down by one percent). According to Automotive News data, as of March 1, Chrysler had an unsold inventory of 24,713 Town and Country models and 18,547 Grand Caravans - a 69- and 43-day supply, respectively.
"No sense running full speed now, then have a lot of vehicles sitting around a few months down the line," Chrysler spokeswoman Jodi Tinson told AN. Full production is expected to resume again on March 18.