The Garage reports:
The car in my garage last week, a 2010 Chrysler PT Cruiser Classic, technically shouldn’t have been there at all. You see, last year, with Chrysler bleeding bad, racing towards bankruptcy and on their knees in front of the US Congress looking for bailout money, promised the slow selling PT Cruiser would be killed. Not so fast. Enter savior Fiat, and the PT Cruiser gets a stay of execution, and lives on for another year.
Before we talk about the initial success of the PT Cruiser, it’s worth noting this car had a rough start from the get-go. In the late 1990’s Chrysler realized they had allowed their Plymouth brand to languish and get stale. The retro hot-rod Plymouth Prowler was the first salvo to revitalize the tired brand, and the follow-up was to be another retro-inspired car, the PT Cruiser. Then came the merger with Daimler. The Germans took one look at the state of Plymouth, and killed it. The PT Cruiser was spared, and debuted as a Chrysler.
When the PT Cruiser arrived as a 2001 model, the response was overwhelming. It made Car and Driver’s 10 Best. It was named the North American Car of the Year. There were waiting lists, and dealer mark-ups. It simply looked like nothing else out there at the time and offered incredible utility and desirability in a simple, affordable package. It was one of Chrysler’s most successful new model introductions in their history....
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