Intrepidation

Using 2 vehicles of the same color isn't an accurate or credible means of saying they look similar..plus the 2 yellows are different hues Also, the tail lights, and exhaust pipes are a clue that you may be looking at a car's ass not it's nose. Still, if you see a Ferrari in a Saab that's not an insult to the Saab!

You could have at least bought a Civic or a Maxda3. The Ion is not a great car, everyone knows it, the Atra should be a lot better (and sexier). I do understand you plight about resale value. I've seen mid-90's Corollas command prices as much as 3 grand (which I would never pay for).

I was originally gonna go bigger, but it just looked better this size...details fit together right. :AH-HA_wink:

Thanks! You're is awesome too! What is it based off? Kinda reminds me of the Fairlane with a pickup bed and a Chevy front end. It's blocky (in a good way) and quite a different take on the Camino than I would have thought of.

Now, if you actually read the entire thing you'd see why I brought Plymouth back. To further elaborate, it would take the place of Chrysler as the alternative to Dodge, which is all it really is anymore. If Chrysler moves upmarket to compete with luxury marques, it would be leaving behind a chunk of its customer base who don't want a macho Dodge but don't want a premium car. That would be Plymouth's role. The PT was meant to be a Plymouth. If Chrysler moved upmarket the PT wold be out of place, which it kind of is already. Putting it back where it belongs only makes sense. Having a compact sedan would open more sales for Chrysler, since we all know Americans don't like hatchbacks as much as sedans, it's a historical fact. Chrysler Corp has no true midsize crossover, the Nitro and Liberty are too trucky. Give the softer vehicle to the softer brand...crossovers are all the rage...so it makes sense to have a smaller one than what Dodge is getting. Having a FWD large sedan gives buyer an alternative to the RWD LX cars..not everyone likes or wants RWD. The `Cuda can be halo. If everything were to be done right, this would open up a large amount of market share for Chrysler to gain.

Looks quite nice! I actually like those interior colors. You should hang onto it if it's working good now.

The air filtration is kinda cool, I didn't know you could get that feature in this class. The rest of it is lame and screams suckage...especially those wheels. They look like the ugly, crappy Wal-Mart hub caps turned into wheels.

Congrats! They're very nice cars inside and out. I always liked them and wouldn't mind owning one. Best of luck!

Can't be worse than last summer, when the exhaust broke can off just behind the catalytic converter, until we fixed it, i just unbolted it so it wouldn't drag. It was extremely loud

We found a dead opossum in our neighbor's backyard last week... that wasn't pretty. I've never road over a live animal, but I have misjudged a couple times and run over roadkill...ew.

Is it sad when the Camry is the best looking of the group?

It's not something that needs to be done right away right? It's a fairly mall crack and the car isn't loud..honestly if we hadn't noticed it I wouldn't have known from listening. My friend said he got one from the junkyard and it wasn't too hard to replace...looking at the repair manual it doesn't look that difficult, I'd just need to get the parts. It's just one more thing to do, oh so fun y`know?

Since everyone gets a shot at how they would fix brands/companies, I figure I'll give it a go. And no, nothing is being sold off. Dodge: The brand stands for bold, designs that don't follow the crowd, powerful, and performance oriented. Dodge isn't badly damaged IMO, and there are some easy thing that could properly repair it. Ram: Ram is up for redesign, the powertrains seem promising, as does the styling. Give it a truley great interior and it should be in good shape Charger: Give the 2.7L a 5-speed automatic, and improve the interior design/materials some. Magnum: Add 5-speed to the 2.7L Caliber: Upgrade the materials in the interior, teh design itself is fine. Ditch the base engine since the Hornet will become the new budget model (this allows to move the Caliber upscale and justfies the extra cost of a better interior). Add a 6-speed automatic as an option for the R/T model... Avenger: Drop the 2.7L since the 2.4L makes almost as much power. Make the SXT come with the 2.4L and a 6-speed automatic. Make teh R/T's suspension standard on all models, and upgrade the R/T's suspension a little further. Add an SRT-6 to the range, featuring a turbo perhaps. Interior design is fine, but upgrade the materials considerably, and add more color options. Dakota: Upgrade the interior Nitro: Upgrade he interior, make a 5-speed optional on the smaller engine, make a better performance suspension tune for the R/T models Durango: Upgrade the interior materials, colors, and design and transmissions, and put the new 4.7L V8 in it. Caravan: Doesn't need fixing (from what I can see) Add the Hornet, the new Crossover, Challenger, and the Demon Continue to offer Flex Fuel engines and create Hybrid versions of the Caliber and the Avenger Jeep: Jeep is probably the least damaged and the one that has least gone astray Grand Cherokee: Upgrade the interior further if needed, make the diesel an option on the Larado Patriot: Upgrade the interior materials and make a 6-speed automatic an option Compass: Drop it or redesign it to look like the original Compass concept and make it more liek a Rally vehicle as far as offroad performance goes Commander: Redesign it on the Durango platform, and make it look like Recue, make it a low volume model so sales don't need to be high Wrangler: Upgrade the powertrains and the interior Liberty: Upgrade the powertrains and give the interior it's own design that's not a meld of the Nitro and a Shadow, and upgrade the materials Position Jeep to offer diesels in a wide range of its products, that will be it's gas alternatives. Chrysler: Chrysler is the most damaged, with no current or clear direction to go. With Mercedes out of the picture, the answer is simple: However, Chrysler should keep it's names...something unique to the luxury market. Push it all upscale and the premium they will command will compensate for less sales. Aspen: Drop it, there's no place for it in this fuel-conscious world, the Durango is enough. 300: Drop the base model, leave the bargain hunters to the SE Magnum and Charger. When the redesign comes, push it a little further upmarket with an swooping interior and elegant but powerful lines. Make a Hybrid version to give it a powertrain differentiation from the other LX cars Sebring: Redesign the Sebring, on an either RWD platform or FWD platform with and advanced AWD standard. Style it beautifully and gracefully, the way Chryslers should look. make the interior much more upscale. Make it come with a 2.4L and 6-speed standard, the 3.5L being optional, and a range topping 24L Turbo from the SRT-4 as the Top model (almost as powerful as the 3.5L with less weight and better fuel economy). This will give the Sebring something unique. Town and Country. Push it further upscale and make it look nothing like the Caravan. Pacifica: Redesign it, pushing it more upmarket and making it more space efficient behind the 2nd row. Make the 6-speed standard across the board. Ad a new halo car, either the FirePower (with a new name perhaps) or the ME-412 since Daimler will no longer refuse it because it's better than their SLR. PT Cruiser Drop it from the Chrysler lineup Plymouth: Bring it back, it can become a more unique alternative to Dodge. Whereas Dodge is about performance and manliness...Plymouth should appeal to women and men. PT Cruiser: As it was meant to be, redesign the PT and bring to Plymouth. Offer the same Powertrains as the current Caliber, but make automatics optional, and the 6-speed of the top model. Keep it retro Neon: Bring the Neon back for Plymouth, giving buyers a sedan alternative to the hatchback PT and Caliber. It will sell well if styled right. Small Crossover: If the new Dodge crossover is going to be as big as the Lambdas, make a smaller, 5 seat crossover for Plymouth, since none of the other brands have a truly car-like small CUV Breeze: Instead of having a midsize car, Plymouth should have a larger LH sized FWD sedan (with AWD optional) to appeal to those who don't want RWD. Find a partner like ford to use a FWD platform and keep costs down. `Cuda: Give Plymouth a halo car using the LX platform, style it more modern than the Challenger (go the route of the new Camaro), and make it a hardtop (to satisfy those who are dying for one). By doing this, Plymouth can be justifiably different than the other brands, and has a unique sales opportunity. And possibly, bring Eagle back and position it as a youth-oriented division like Scion that sells small, funky cars. -- So that's what I would do to fix Chrysler. I'm not sure if it's the perfect way to go, but i think it's one of the better ideas about what to do with it. What do you guys think?

Yup, the didn't even bother to change the name.

As long as the Hornet translates from concept to production with few changes, and Chrysler keeps an eye on Chery's quality, it should be good. Slap the 2.4L in there and it will kill almost everything in the class.

But it's nowhere near as cool

Yeah, almost everything does these days. But this cost me 3 bucks (wire crimps) to do, verses a whole new stereo I played around with the setting on the Son y and got it to sound pretty good...just took some fine tuning.

I worked hard on this one for several hours...because this isn't a chop of the current Ute...hope you guys like it!

Hopefully you get it it done, they're awesome cars.

Now if they were functional...I could find a use for them in asshole-loaded traffic

It's very cool, the entire car is just awesome. balthazar, I don't think I've ever seen you're B-59...got photos?

On the contrary, it's brilliance and originality. It's like no other `57 Chevy. I applaud him for doing something different and way, way out of the box...and it looks awesome.

Besides the air dam...how?

Jeff Mann's '57 Chevy runs a blown Hemi under its hood, and lots of unexpected details We've entered the era of the Stepford Chevys. Once upon a time, 1957 Chevys were nasty street racers driven by the socially maladjusted and feared by the decent citizenry. But those days are long gone. Today '57 Chevys are driven to the nostalgia diner by grandfathers in "Foose Design" T-shirts. You've seen the guy's ride. It's the monochrome red 1957 Chevy Bel Air with the 502 big-block crate engine parked next to five others just like it over by the D.A.R.E. car. Jeff Mann's '57 Chevy is a heretic in this Church Of Conventional Wisdom — Chevy Synod. There's not a single GM component in the entire drivetrain; nothing in or on the car came preassembled in a crate; it's defiantly multichromatic; it's more than a little dangerous; and any fuzzy dice that get near the car are likely to be sucked in and consumed by the blown, electronically fuel-injected early Chrysler Hemi under its hood. Professionally Creative Today Mann is a big-time motion picture production designer; the guy decides what a movie's on-screen world looks like. It was Mann who decreed that the Mustang Nicolas Cage drove in Gone in Sixty Seconds should be painted silver and black. And it's Mann who directed the design of the Autobots and Decepticons coming in this summer's Transformers. This is not a guy who gets paid to recycle the same old ideas. Jeff Mann's business is creativity and the fine art of the telling detail. But back in 1984, he was a 19-year-old working as a mechanic on offshore boats in San Diego. Back then, there was a faded blue '57 Bel Air coupe always parked in the same place along his commute. Every body panel was bashed in some way and the whole thing seemed to be sagging over its worn springs. "There wasn't a 'For Sale' sign in it," Mann recalls, "but I tracked the guy down and bought it anyhow. It was $2,400 and I had to take out a loan at 26 percent interest to get even that. I was deluded. The guy I bought it from had found it buried in an Oklahoma oil field." Cars once buried in oil fields not only demand a lot of attention, they need a bucketful of money, too — well beyond Mann's reach at the time. So the car went into hibernation at a relative's house while Mann's career improbably evolved from mechanic to production designer as he worked on friends' music videos. By the early '90s, Mann was working in show business full-time, living in Los Angeles, and he was accumulating restoration pieces and hot-rod parts for the eventual resurrection of his '57. Then he decided he had to have a Hemi. Chrysler's Finest In the pre-eBay world, Southern Californians had The Recycler (a cheaply printed weekly book of classified ads) around to get rid of their junk. "I was building a 327 Chevy small-block for the car," Mann remembers, "and I was already bored by the idea of another '57 with a small-block in it. Then I saw an ad in The Recycler that said ''58 Chrysler New Yorker, $500, runs good,' and suddenly I thought I really needed to own a Hemi." Mann found the New Yorker molting in one of L.A.'s funkier neighborhoods and, after buying the car, pulled its 392-cubic-inch Hemi V8 and Torqueflite automatic transmission out of it on the spot. The engine and tranny went home with Mann in his truck while a junkyard claimed the gutted New Yorker shell. Somewhere around 1993, while working on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, the combination of his '57 Chevy and the ancient Hemi sitting in his garage came to Mann's mind. So the Chevy body went to Ellery Engel Restoration Specialties of Piru, California, where the floorpan, rear quarters and rockers were replaced with fresh steel. The frame went to Tierno's General Fabrication in Los Angeles to figure out the engine transplant. Getting the Hemi into the Chevy chassis wasn't particularly tough — all it took was a whole new front suspension. The Chrysler V8 is about the same length as a small-block Chevy and swapping the stock front suspension and recirculating-ball steering for a Jim Meyers Racing front suspension and rack-and-pinion steering provided the clearance for the additional width and crankcase depth. It got more complicated from there. Engine Development Program Early Hemis are very different beasts from the Hemi that comes in today's Chrysler products. Besides being physically much larger (and heavier), Chrysler never offered the early Hemi with any sort of fuel injection. So when Mann decided to equip his with modern electronic fuel injection, he was basically undertaking his very own engine development program. That's never cheap. With the body now pristine and perfect — and wearing Dupont Lime Gold paint on most of its surfaces with Metallic Charcoal on the roof — it was mated back with the now Hemi-powered chassis. Churning a Richmond five-speed manual transmission and a Lincoln Versailles rear axle, the naturally aspirated version of the injected Hemi produced a disappointing 350 horsepower at the rear wheels on a chassis dyno. This was more than disappointing in light of the stroker crank that upped total displacement to 450 cubic inches, the Hot Heads aluminum heads and all the other premium performance pieces stuffed into it. But while coming home from that dyno run, the engine chewed through the teeth on its aftermarket oil pump, causing it to seize and propel itself through the engine block's webbing. That was that for that block. Fight or Flight At that point, Mann could have heaved the whole thing aside in frustration. Instead, he got another Hemi block and stuffed the surviving parts from the first engine into it. Then he added to the engineering challenge by throwing a Vortech V7-YSi centrifugal supercharger into the mix. A few horrendous snafus later (at one point the blower had been accidentally engineered to run backward), the Hemi wound up with Kenny Duttweiler of Duttweiler Performance in Saticoy, California. Duttweiler rebuilt the fuel-injection system using wideband sensors, huge injectors, a Holley throttle body and an Accel DFI engine control computer. Now running a crank trigger ignition, Duttweiler made about 30 pulls on his engine dyno, tuning the Hemi to run both on pump gas and racing fuel. After some blown gaskets and another catastrophic failure, which necessitated the adoption of J.E. custom-built pistons, the Hemi produced 830 hp on pump gas and more than 900 hp on race fuel. Jeff Mann finally had his fast and beautiful, blown and injected Hemi-powered '57 Chevy. By the time he was done, it was late 2006. Details, Details, Details Jeff Mann has more than 20 years of blood, sweat and cold hard cash in this project. And only now is he getting to drive it regularly. With its snarling exhaust roar and distinctive blower whine, Mann's '57 is an undeniable beast. But the unique paint choices and accumulated details make it a visual feast. From the machine-turned panels along the car's flanks to the '68 Impala door fabric modified into a headliner, every element of Mann's car is subtly unique without turning the car clownish. It presents the classic lines of the '57 cleanly; there are no graphics or flames fighting for attention. It's immediately apparent that this '57 is something special, but it doesn't shout it out. It's a clean, beautiful car. But at its heart, it's one nasty street racer. http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Featu...otopanel..1.*#2

Wow, I woulda thought someone would have posted.