The only thing the New Chrysler Corporation has that looks like Chrysler has that it looks like it might understand that Detroit no longer produces cars by any divine dictate, other than Lee Iacocca's, is the Dodge Rampage, a little sport-truck on the order of the Subaru Brat, like a scaled down Ranchero or El Camino,, redeemed by the fact that it's as quick as a bunny.

When a construction worker has moved past foreman to supervisor and then spent enough time there to have established the distinction in his own mind, the first thing he does is trade the pickup in on an El Camino. There follows a few days of good-natured and generally envy-inspired razzing. The first to have achieved such a status and then gone against the grain and bought a Rampage undoubtedly took an unmerciful ration of $hit; the second, a severe and rather ill-natured attack, but by the third occasion, the boys on the jobsite had probably spent enough time eating dust on the way to the bar after work that no untoward words were spoken.

It's not much for schlepping stuff around, but supervisor's trucks were never supposed to be, and it gives off a definite air of dash and dexterity.

The Plymouth version was given the kiss-of-death name "Scamp" and the sales handle doesn't seem to have been quite grasped yet.

One of the the salesmen, at Negherbon Lincoln-Mercury-Chrysler-Plymouth (what a depressing corporate litany!) an older gent, had glommed onto a dazed-looking customer in his late twenties while I was there and gradually the customer had gravitated toward the showroom Scamp. The salesmans gears kept slipping once he started to address this new little neither-nor:

"This little car - little truck - little car-like truck..." (and here he paused to catch his breath) "...is really a pretty economical litte thig, and you can haul a fair amount of stuff around in it, too."


This is not the sort of pitch that prods and pokes the dormant Animal Spirits into a buying fever; most likely nobody filled the salesman in on the fact that that's what we're up to again this year.

What was needed was something like:

"This thing moves like a bat out of hell with its ass-hairs on fire, and the money you save on gas in a week will pay off your tab at the Wild Oat Inn, and leave you with change to spare for the cigarette machine."

Still, he did the best he could under the circumstances and delayed the guy's exit for a minute or two; it's hard to have the old reflexes tuned to close-the-sale tone when the only thing you've had to practice on in months has been either the the cardboard cut-out customers who've been set up as stand-up displays or the stuffed cartoon cougar that Mercury's replaced Chauncey with."






excerpted from:

The East Bay Express (December 3, 1982)

"Drive, They Said ... reflections on a cruise down Auto Row" by Bart Bull


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1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)