Chrysler Viper Reviews

And if the predictions are correct, this time the Caliber will have a bit more gunpowder to back up its name. Thanks to the ownership by Fiat, the Chrysler family-owned Dodge Caliber will sit on the Alfa Romeo Giulietta "Wide C" platform and make its appearance at the 2012 Detroit motor show in January. The "Wide C" platform will also provide the underpinnings for the 2013 Alfa SUV and possibly the later Jeep Compass and Patriot. Caliber may get access to the Giulietta's 173kW/340Nm 1.75-lire turbo-petrol engine to create a hot SRT4 version, though most will either retain Chrysler's tired 2.4-litre petrol engine or gradually move into the hi-tech Fiat Group MultiAir engine range.

Chrysler 300C is a big, bold, very American machine with aggressive styling that explains its nickname of ‘the gangster car’.

 ...another dymamic duo graced our television screens — The Green Hornet and Kato. And, just like the caped crusader, the suave Hornet had a very special car with lots of really cool gadgets to deal with the baddies. In fact, the pair actually appeared in a couple of Batman episodes. In a first foray outside the United States, the ultra cool car from The Green Hornet movie is touring Oz to promote its DVD release on June 1. The movie stars Seth Rogen as playboy newspaper publisher Britt Reid/Green Hornet and Chinese singer Jay Chou as Kato his driver and trusty sidekick.  Chou reprises the role in which martial arts legend Bruce Lee made his Hollywood debut.  Together the pair spend their evenings kicking butt as the crime fighting duo. In the TV series, kato drove a jet black 1966 Chrysler Crown Imperial that had been heavily customised one for its screen role. Known as "The Black Beauty" it reportedly cost $US50,000 to build and was the work of Dean Jefferies who authored many Hollywood vehicles including the Batmobile. For the movie the producers had plenty of offers from eager car companies wanting to see their steeds up in lights. But none of the contenders measured up to the cool original, according to star Rogen. So a 65 Imperial Crown was sourced and modified in a bid to convince director Michel Gondry it could still pull off the role. The trouble is the producers needed more than just one car. What followed was a hunt for all the `64-`66 Imperials that the film makers could lay their hands, a search that spanned Canada and the United States — some 29 cars in all. Most were in pretty bad shape and had to be stripped back to the metal to provide the cannon fodder for the many stunt sequences. Many didn't survive the experience. Replacing the original Chrysler V8 was a big block 7.4-litre Chevy ZZ454, along with Race Trans Turbo 400 transmissions, Ford differentials and four-wheel disc brakes. The finished cars were then handed over to the stunt department that added machine guns, missiles and a flamethrower. It's a far cry from the 60s TV series for which just two Beauties were assembled: one for close-ups and the other less detailed model for long shots.  But as was the norm in those days, many of the gadgets actually worked. You could fire rockets from the front and rear, although the first time they tried to do this for the camera, it blew half the front away.   A built-in TV camera could see "four miles" ahead and twin green headlights rotated, emitting a light that could only be seen by the Hornet and Kato. Built into the trunk was the launching mechanism for the Hornet Scanner, but in one episode this was replaced with a mortar. Pop out brooms swept away tell-tale tyre tracks behind each rear wheel. Steel rams in the front and rear locked into clamps which held the car tight as the floor on which it sat revolved to reveal Britt Reid's daily driver. When it was originally delivered, Black Beauty was finished in black lacquer, but unfortunately it didn't show up well on film because the lacquer reflected the light. So the car was repainted in flat black. Both the movie and TV series are based on the 1930s radio drama by George W Trendle. Trendle is reported to have bought the rights for the Hornet from Fran Striker, who was the creator of The Lone Ranger. The TV series ran over a two year period, between 1966 and 1967.  It starred Van Williams as the Hornet and martial arts superstar Bruce Lee as his chaffeur Kato. It was Lee's first major Hollywood role. Trivia buffs will also be interested to learn that Van Williams lives in Ketchum, Idaho, where his next door neighbor is Batman star Adam West.  Though they're getting on in years the two are said to be the best of buddies. You can see The Black Beauty at the Supanova Pop Culture Expo on from June 17 to 19 in Sydney's Olympic Park.  

Zooming around a track while demolishing targets with paintballs fired from a bonnet-mounted cannon.The catches? It's in a Captiva rather than an 007-styled Aston Martin -- which limits the dynamic potential of the zooming a little -- and it's being done only in the UK at the moment to mark the launch of the vehicle there.However, if the new sport catches on as Carsguide thinks it deserves to, maybe we'll see it here before long.Holden Commodores at 20 paces, anyone?

After a major bailout by the American government, and a new partnership with Fiat of Italy, the US maker has just reported its first black-ink result since 2009. It banked $106 million on its first-quarter operations for 2010, compared with a $180 million loss for the same period in 2010. Chrysler's revenue improved 35 percent through the quarter to $12 billion as its worldwide sales - led by the successful new Chrysler 300C in the USA and the latest Grand Cherokee from Jeep - improved by 18 per cent. The result is praised by anaylsts at Morgan Stanley in the USA, which calls the results "impressive". "Chrysler Group's improved sales and financial performance in the first quarter show that our rejuvenated product lineup is gaining momentum in the marketplace," says Chrysler's chief executive, Sergio Marchionne, who took the top job as part of Fiat's buy-in to the company two years ago.

Chrysler Australia has confirmed the hot-rodded SUV is slated to top off the new Jeep Grand Cherokee fleet in the second quarter of next year. And at a price expected to undercut the $90,000 charged for the outgoing SRT8. The 346kW, 6.4 litre Hemi V8 is claimed to top 240 km/h and jump from 0 to 100km/h in around 4.8 seconds, aided by a stump-pulling 630Nm of torque fed through a permanent four-wheel drive system. As before, the SRT8 wagon is not for rock-climbing or mud-plugging. Just for getting places with a decent amount of pace. Jeep's five-speed auto, with paddle shifts, has been reworked with revised ratios; coil springs and Bilstein dampers have been fitted all round and the Grand Cherokee chassis stiffened by some 25 per cent. There's big Brembo brakes, a lockable rear differential  plus three, driver-selectable suspension modes to best keep the SRT8 at the right sort of attitude for different tasks. Until then the all-new 3.7 litre V6 and 5.7 litre V8 Grand Cherokees are keeping Chrysler Australia busy. "We can't get enough of Grand Cherokee at the moment," says Chrysler Australia's marketing manager Dean Bonthorne. "With that $45,000 starting price for the Laredo, and mixing it with the (Toyota) Kluger and (Ford) Territory, it's an absolute winner." Next wagon to roll in will be a 'bells and whistles' Overland version of the Grand Cherokee, priced under $70,000.

The Lonsdale engine plant might be unrecognisable and Tonsley Park has little signage left, but there's plenty of examples of Chrysler's production history still running hard. The Chrysler Charger legend was born in 1971 and for years was the fastest-accelerating Australian-built car. Tony and Karen Lennell have strong connections to the breed, with family working for the company at the time of the Charger's production. But it wasn't always Chryslers that sat in the Lennell garage - Holdens and later HSVs were under the the roof as well. "I was a Holden man but had family ties to Chrysler here - Karen's dad was an engineer there, they've grown on me over the years so we decided to buy one," he says. The couple - under the pretence of a weekend away in Sydney - found what they were looking for just over a year ago at Australian Musclecar Sales in Sydney. The couple's car is a pretty rare beast - a 1971 three-speed manual VH E37 Charger R/T, powered by the famous 265-cubic inch (about 4.3-litre) in-line "Hemi" six-cylinder engine. When it left the factory in 1971 priced at $3935 new, there was 248 horsepower on offer - 185kW and 415Nm - thanks to triple Weber carburettors. It's one of only 135 R/Ts built and one of just 18 painted in the hot mustard colour - while Mr Lennell was coy about how much he paid for the car, pristine examples have sold for as much as $100,000. "We flew to Sydney for a weekend away, and I happened to just say that we were going to stop off and look at a car - four hours later we owned the car," he says. The E37 has been returned to factory-spec after the long and expensive task of sourcing parts and getting the car to the right automotive people for the serious work. Friday nights have become known as shed night with work continuing into early hours of Saturday morning. "We got to work on researching the original parts and equipment, it needed a three-speed gearbox, Mark at Brighton Service Centre put that in for me - he sourced the gearbox for me." Mr Lennell said the floor, interior trim and the cabin have been returned to how the car was as it left the line at Tonsley Park 40 years ago. "The engine and diff have been given the once-over as well, the 3.23:1 LSD is back in there, it's got new original-spec extractors and the triple carburettors have been put back to rights by West Torrens Dyno Centre," he says. Although registered on historic plates, the E37 isn't a molly-coddled museum piece - the Lennells drove it to Renmark for an award-winning appearance at a recent club event and more recently braved locusts and native fauna to enter the car in the Chrysler on The Murray event at Albury-Wodonga. "We were just at Chrysler On The Murray, where we won the best VH Charger .... we were one of more than 150 Chargers up there for the 40th anniversary," he says. The couple received plenty of "Hey Charger" salutes on the trip to Albury-Wodonga. "Every time we stopped for fuel it took about half an hour to leave as people wanted to have a look at the car, it hardly used any oil and cruised at 100km/h all the way. "We were driving down the Hume with Leo Geoghegan's car next to us, E49s, E38s - they got a group shot of 150 of these cars together, it was fantastic." The job is not done yet as the couple have plans to pull the engine out for another re-build - as well as a taking it back to its original colour - re-painting the engine bay and re-building the front suspension in preparation for next year. "It was a fun drive and we're going to do it again next year - we're going to take it up to Bathurst next year and take it up The Mountain," he says. About the Chrysler Valiant Charger The Chrysler Valiant Charger is an icon of Australian motor vehicle manufacturing and the VH started it all. The company started manufacturing in 1971 and built 17,918 VH Chargers - at one stage accounting for half of the total Valiant production by Chrysler. Overall, around 1300 were R/T models, and of these, but R/T E37 Performance models numbered only 135. The R/T had a 3.23:1 differential (rather than the 2.92 standard in other Chargers), as well as a tachometer, oil pressure gauge, six-inch rims, a front anti-roll bar and a three-speed manual gearbox. At the time the company claimed a stock E37 could complete a quarter-mile sprint in 15.7 seconds, but that number fell if the optional "six-pack" package was added, which put three two-barrel Weber carburettors on the straight-six engine and upped the power to 248hp (a 30hp increase) and 306 foot pounds. The base-model car was priced from $2795 but the R/T was priced $3395 - now these cars can fetch anywhere between $60,000 and $110,000. The R/T high performance pack came about from a desire to go motor racing, adding black stripes, a black radiator grille, driving lights, model-specific steel wheels, a sports instrumentation pack and a two-spoke aluminium steering wheel.

So when a pristine 1956 Cadillac Fleetwood limo was offered for sale by a New South Wales funeral director fallen on hard times Mike was quick to name his price. And for $30,000 scored a big and handsome American machine to park alongside his aquamarine 1966 Ford Mustang convertible and yet-to-be-loved 1967 Mustang coupe. "The bloke bought a PT Cruiser convertible from me a while back because his wife had one she wouldn't let him drive," says Mike. "Six months ago he fell into a bit of strife and tried to sell the Cruiser back. That didn't work out and I asked about this Cadillac he'd told me about. "He reckons he'd spent $87,000 on the Cadillac but how do you research a price on something like this? I offered him $30,000 and he drove it up one day while we were out. We raced back and did the deal." The long-standing Brisbane dealer also bought a black 1972 Cadillac hearse, since onsold, from the Ballina funeral director. But it's the gold-painted and chromed Fleetwood limo that's now taking up some time and space in Mike's shed. Originally black, the Cadillac was brought in from San Francisco where it was owned by a man with an interest in a Reno casino; he was chauffeur-driven the 350 kilometres between the two North American cities. Here it was converted to right-hand drive, rebuilt and resprayed in Cadillac Pale Gold. The 6 litre V8 and three-speed transmission were rebuilt to General Motors' specifications while the eight-seater's internal trim was remanufactured in the USA. Standard Cadillac equipment here - all operational - includes ducted air-conditioning, power windows and front seats, glass divider behind the front seat, power brakes, steering and radio antenna. All that's been added to the original comfort and convenience features is a CD stacker and 600 watt amplifier, tucked tidily away in the boot, plus a cassette radio under the dashboard. Mike allows the Fleetwood 'is a bit of a beast to drive'. "It'd be okay out on the highway, probably cruise pretty well. Around town the brakes are either on or off and she's a bit long," he notes. But with daughter Rachael's wedding approaching in May, someone will be driving the bridesmaids in the Cadillac. The bride? She wants to go in the Mustang convertible. About the Cadillac Fleetwood Cadillacs were the favourite transport of the King, Elvis Presley, who owned a string of them from the 1950s to the 1970s. For these were the Rolls-Royce of the States, favoured by presidents, celebrities and gangsters. Less than 1000 Cadillac Fleetwood Imperials were built in 1956, priced close to $7000. Almost six metres long, the Cadillac weighed in around 2.3 tonne and rode on a 3.8m wheelbase with 15 inch wheels. The V8 produced 285 horsepower with one four-barrel carburettor; 305 horsepower with the option of an extra four-barrel carb. And for 1956 the Cadillac's three-speed Hydra-Matic transmission was claimed to smooth out shifting qualities. Other models in the 1956 line-up included a Fleetwood sedan, DeVille four-door hardtop and Eldorado Seville two-door hardtop.

Ford is posting huge profits and knows where it is going with everything from the Focus to the upcoming Escape and Explorer, and General Motors has trimmed for growth as well as previewing the Barina sedan and a couple of classy American hopefuls in motown on Monday morning.But when Chrysler chief Olivier Francois got up to introduce the all-new 300C he talked openly about a company, and an industry, that is pulling itself up off the ropes to answer the bell for future sales."It's time. Time for Chrysler to come back onto the automotive stage like this," says Francois. "It's time for a car that makes a bold statement without saying a word. It's time for the torch of the most awarded car ever to be passed. And we did this with only one objective - to make it even better."Chrysler says it spent more than $1 billion on the impressive looking new 300C and it's the standout American car at this year's Detroit show. But there is, as always, a lot more to see and understand at the first major show of the year. When Hyundai turns the spotlight on its all-new Veloster and the Curb concept it gets a predictable reaction, but then it also talks reinventing the brand in the USA.Then Kia, which is using a couple of months of extra lead time on all the joint models it shares with Hyundai to do a better job, rolls the adventurous KV7 concept onto its stand.The combined impact is great news for buyers but an awful effort for Japanese carmakers, since Korea is now doing a better job of Japanese-  style vehicles and including the emotion that's missing from contenders from the other country.Honda does its best in Detroit by previewing the all-new Civic concept - it's basically the production car and far more punchy than the underdone CR-Z hybrid - but it could be too little and too late for Japan, since Toyota has nothing new and Nissan is not even at the show.And BYD of China makes a splash as well, although its cars are still early-Korean standard when you get up close.Detroit has plenty of eye candy, from the race-bred Porsche 918 RSR to the plug-in electric SLS in safety vest yellow on the Mercedes-Benz stand and the huge selection of Boss 302 Mustangs on the Ford stand. It seems every carmaker also has some form of plug-in electric car, hybrid or alternative energy vehicle, from the hybrid RSR on down.But the company with the single most impressive exhibit, once you drill down a bit, is Ford. It is using the all-new Focus as the base to show what can be done in a One Ford world where spin-offs from a basic platform satisfy just about every showroom shopper. There is everything from an all-electric Focus battery car to a hybrid, a C-Max mini people mover, the upcoming replacement for the Escape and more."There are 10 different models, top hats, off the one platform. All on the one production line,"  says Ford's CEO, Alan Mulally. "Henry Ford, back in 1925, advertised opening the highways to all mankind. Making it affordable. We're accelerating Henry's original vision."The news in Detroit is more than just concept cars and new showroom contenders. Opel confirms a plan that will put its cars into Australian showrooms from 2012, not as part of the Holden lineup but as a separate brand under its own banner."This is not just an Australian play. It's important for Opel. It's an important brand statement," says Opel chief, Nick Reilly.Ford leaks news that the Falcon could go front or all-wheel drive, with the potential loss of local production. "Don't hold your breath," says global design boss, J Mays.Mercedes-Benz talks for the first time about a huge safety push on its C-Class starter car, Chrysler confirms a 12-month delay on Australian deliveries of its impressive new 300C, and there is endless hopeful banter at General Motors on the future prospects of the Commodore and a born-again export program to the USA.Gover's opinion ...The overall vibe at Detroit 2011 is more positive than recent years, but not nearly as upbeat as the years before the global financial crisis. There are far fewer concept cars and dream machines. The concepts that are presented are, mostly, based on real production cars with some extra bling for the spotlights.What comes through clearly is that the GFC has forced all carmakers to re-think their business.Most have dumped the old 'push' model, where factories ran at capacity and dealers were force-feeding buyers using huge incentives, for a 'pull' program where production is matched to the real demand in showrooms.There are still some exceptions, but GM Holden boss Mike Devereux talks openly about building "one fewer car than customers want" in Australia.It's a policy that worked brilliantly for Enzo Ferrari and one that is being adopted more and more in the post-GFC motoring world.

It's the make-or-break Chrysler 300C that cost the bankrupt corporation more than $1 billion and must work to give Chrysler some much-needed leverage in its global partnership with Fiat.The 300C will eventually also wear Lancia badges in some countries but, as it is revealed today in Detroit, is a new hero for Chrysler.  It looks good and tough, is suitably lightweighted and technologically loaded, and is promised at value prices.The bad news for Australia is that right-hand drive production is a low priority and the new 300C will not land until 2012. Until then, Chrysler Australia has 12-months' stock of the outgoing car.Chrysler has a totally new take on the 300C, which retains some of its gangsta impact but is more modern in everything from the front-end styling to slimmer pillars and windscreens that drop away much more dramatically than the upright glass of the current car.It retains rear-wheel drive but has much-improved suspension and steering, the key engine is the new-generation Pentastar V6 already fitted to the Jeep Grand Cherokee, and pricing in the USA starts as low as $27,995.  Chrysler has done a lot of work on touchy-feeling stuff, from better shaping in the seats to heated-and-cooled seats and cupholders, a 20cm touch-screen infotainment system and a dual-plane sunroof.The new 300C can roll on 20-inch alloys and there is more than two metres of acustic insulation and underbody paneling to smooth airflow and cut drag and fuel economy.The new 300C is displayed at Detroit alongside a revamped Voyager minivan and massively-updated 200 sedan that both reflect the new styling direction from Chrysler's hero car.