End of the Line For the PT Loser

Today, July 9, 2010 marks a day that will burn in the hearts of car guys everywhere- it's the end of the road for the venerable and lovable Chrysler PT Cruiser.

Okay- maybe I'm being a bit dramatic... No car guy really ever loved the PT Cruiser, but as one who once sold them- I'll never forget the little retro-styled car.

When I started selling Chryslers in the fall of 2004, the PT Cruiser was really, our only inexpensive, small-car offering.

Us salesmen quickly dubbed it the "PT Loser," because aside from financially raping someone in special finance, there was literally no money to made on them. They were "flats," $75 losers.

The strangest people liked them... Many of which brought-in the local paper ad, where we always had one "loss leader," on a car that was so stripped-down- any more and it would be a retro-mobile to the Flintstones-era.

Some notable favorites who came-in and bought the Loser Cruiser (that come to my mind anyway) was an old (odd) hippie couple from Hackensack, who of all-things drove another, older, PT Cruiser.

They had seen the ad for a $13,999 car, and had wanted to upgrade. But before they cold lay-eyes on the "stripper" we were slinging in the local paper, walking them through the lot they spotted the Limited Edition Dream Cruiser (Chrysler for a while made limited production Dream Cruisers- even numbered them in a series as if they were model matchbox cars to be collected out of a Happy Meal...)

As the husband of the pair saw the Metallic Purple Dream Cruiser- he said to his wife "if we had that, we'd be the envy of the club..."

The wife then whispered back to him- "can you imagine doing it that one?"

Doing it? What kind of club were they talking about?

At this point- I prayed I didn't have to appraise their trade...

Turns out the dynamic duo were members of a club- a PT Cruiser club- but it is still unclear as to what kind of cruising- they were doing in the back of their cars...

Another notable Cruiser favorite was the lady on welfare from Toms River, who schlepped her brother, about ninety miles up the Garden State Parkway for the privilege of busting my balls over a black PT Cruiser that had to have a simulated wood-grain paneling kit on the sides- (like an old Woody Wagon...) or she'd refuse to drive it.

The lady was literally destitute and her brother had offered to co-sign on a new car- but she insisted on the $3,500 right to have fake wood glued on the sides of her new basic transportation. In fact, she was quite animate about it proclaiming "I would never drive a PT Cruiser without wood on the side... I'm not low-class..."

Her words, not mine. (Hey, the customer is always right, what can I say?)

I remember my desk boss in the tower- who penned the deals quipping "the bitch doesn't have a pot to piss in... but she wants wood on her PT Cruiser... Welcome to f'n America asshole..." he overcharged her on the wood package- after all- it doesn't hurt to try when you know it's not going to happen.

We blew-her-out- no car, no wood and all.

But the last and final PT Cruiser anecdote belongs to the 94 year-old lady who walked in one January afternoon and wrote a check, for what was surely going to be... her last car.

Mary was 94 and... (to her anyway) it was time to say goodbye to the green 1994 Plymouth Neon with 14,700 original miles. She needed a new Chrysler.

She paid for the thing with a bank check- that we made her go and get... Signed the papers and drove away- running over the curb as she made it back to Route 4.

I like to think- she loved the Cruiser because it reminded her of cars when she was.... 34.

Not all the people who drove PT Cruisers were losers- but those who did drive them- were as old as they were odd- and invariably- blind as a bat.

Not a segment worth promoting, especially when you're bankrupt.

I'm just wondering when Chevrolet will follow suit and discontinue the HHR- their answer for making a car like the PT Loser.