(12:12:53 June 02, 2003)
Image Conscious: Availability of '04 Chrysler Crossfire 'image car' to be slim
By MARY CONNELLY | Automotive News
DETROIT - Availability - and profits - will be slim this year for the 2004 Chrysler Crossfire.
It will be year end before every dealer selling the Crossfire receives at least one. Dealer profits will be squeezed by an $8,100 charge to sell the halo car.
The Chrysler group, which is opening the spigot slowly on the Crossfire, designed to move the Chrysler brand upscale. Only 8,700 units will be available in the U.S. market in 2003, says Marc Henretta, company spokesman. The car begins arriving in dealerships this week.
"The company is promising that every dealer who signs up for Crossfire will have one by the end of the year," says dealer Michael Faretta. "You might not make any money on the car when all is said and done. You may not make 10 cents on the car itself, but you will get people thinking about Chrysler. It is an image car."
The company says 1,850, or 63 percent, of the Chrysler brand's 2,946 dealerships are authorized to sell the Crossfire. Assuming 2,000 dealerships sign up, that is 4.4 cars per store.
Faretta, owner of D & M Chrysler Jeep Inc. in Altoona, Pa., sells about 700 new units annually. He says he has been allocated three 2004 Crossfires.
The $8,100 dealer charge pays for $6,600 in tools and diagnostic equipment, $1,200 in parts inventory and $300 in technician and sales training, the company says.
For each Crossfire, the dealer's discount is about $2,500, the difference between the invoice price of the model with a five-speed automatic transmission and its sticker.
All Chrysler brand dealers are eligible to sell the Crossfire if requirements are met. But Chrysler is allocating the cars based on a dealership's luxury market potential and sales.
"The five strongest markets for this car are Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, New York and Washington, D.C.," Henretta says. "We know that based on registrations for the luxury-specialty segment.
"We want these vehicles in the right market so they sell. We do not want dealers buying them from another dealer at a premium and then selling them to the customer at a premium to make money on it. We have an MSRP for a reason."
Todd Hoover, owner of Hoover Chrysler Dodge in Georgetown, S.C., says: "It is a new car, and you hate to turn it down. You've got to try it."
Hoover sells about 260 new units annually. The store has been allocated two 2004 Crossfire models, with the promise that one will be delivered in 2003, he says.
Says Henretta: "Any dealer who signed up will have one Crossfire by the end of the year."
The two-seat, rear-wheel-drive 2004 Crossfire is assembled by Wilhelm Karmann GmbH in Osnabruck, Germany.
Dealer investment for tooling and parts is higher than typical for a new model because the Crossfire shares an estimated 39 percent of its parts with Mercedes-Benz vehicles. For example, the 215-hp, 18-valve, 3.2-liter V-6 and the transmissions come from Mercedes. So does the steering column and wheel, air conditioning and heating systems, electrical architecture and suspension designs.
Dealers will recoup the investment over several Crossfire model years. The tooling also will be used for unspecified future models that will share componentry with Mercedes, says Bill McSkimming, chairman of the Chrysler Jeep National Dealer Council and owner of Riverfront Chrysler Jeep in North Aurora, Ill.
For example, the replacements for the Chrysler Concorde and the Chrysler 300M will be rwd and will draw on the Mercedes parts bin.
The Crossfire with a five-speed automatic is $35,570, and the model with a six-speed manual is $34,495. Prices include $875 transportation.
Chrysler executives have said the automaker is aiming for approximately 20,000 U.S. sales annually and another 2,500 in Europe.
Pacifica gets incentives
The Chrysler group has tacked a $1,000 lease loyalty discount on the 2004 Chrysler Pacifica sport wagon and has added the vehicle to a $500 trade-in dealer cash program that covers other vehicles, just two months after the Pacifica went on sale.
The lease loyalty incentive was scheduled to expire today, June 2.
The Pacifica carries a base price of $31,230, including destination charge, for the front-wheel-drive version and $32,980 for the all-wheel-drive version. -Automotive News
Image Conscious: Availability of '04 Chrysler Crossfire 'ima
Linear Mode
