It's no news that the 300's been a hit for Chrysler — and we here at the Jalop obviously are fans of the Dodge Charger SRT8, and the new Dodge Challenger's certainly got itself a purdy mouth. But there's potentially going to be some fuel economy issues inherent with a RWD, Hemi-powered platform given the current desire by Washington to focus toward beating up automakers and away from a more common-sensical Euro approach to increasing fuel economy. So what's the three-headed dog-owned car company going to do? According to the website for the lovers, the dreamers and me the answer is — not a whole lot.
The Car Connection is reporting:
"Chrysler's plans for its large 300/Charger sedans include a major makeover for the 2011 model year. But while Chrysler's new managers have been dropping hints about the future of the HEMI engine, there's not much they can do about the rear-drive layout of the big sedans."
Although we can barely contain our glee about continuing a vehicular line-up including a rear-wheel drive power sedan, we are wondering why they're not looking to change that somewhat inefficient in fuel economy, but always efficient in fun, drivetrain plan. TCC's got an answer for that too:
"A switch to front-wheel drive could improve the fuel economy of the sedans, but reports to TCC say that there's no money set aside to make the switch to front-wheel drive."
Whatever happened to the mountains of dollars private equity's able to drop on an automaker? [via The Car Connection]