New Dodge version of the Grand Chero

InCommando · **Posted:** Sat Jul 24, 2010 6:15 am

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/07/22/2012 ... twitter%2F

Too bad autoblog, an alleged industry expert, can't put together that the Dodge is a a re-bodied Grand even though there is a Grand in the background. I hate that things like this and Allpar are so poorly done...

STINGN · **Posted:** Sat Jul 24, 2010 7:25 am

wow..that is pretty sad lol

Tokyojoe · **Posted:** Sat Jul 24, 2010 12:30 pm

I'm tired of copycat models made by companies controlled by another company.
Dilution of models. The Liberty was a distinct model, then came the KK model looking like a mini Commander that didn't sell worth crap and the stupid copy Nitro.
The Grand looks like a Magnum on `roids.

Jeep needs to become independent of all companies (or just owned by a foreign company - no domestic ownership) so it can be like Land Rover...No other vehicles like them.

InCommando · **Posted:** Sat Jul 24, 2010 6:13 pm

Rover's market share is imperceptable and it is owned, last I heard, by BMW, or it probably would not survive. They probably are not a group to emulate. If your goal is to cut sales by 80% and increase prices by 33%, by all means go the Land Rover route....

Khaki-KJ · **Posted:** Sat Jul 24, 2010 6:26 pm

Ford Reaches Deal to Sell Land Rover and Jaguar

NEW DELHI — Tata Motors, part of India’s fast-growing Tata Group, is buying Jaguar and Land Rover from the Ford Motor Company for $2.3 billion — about half what Ford paid for the brands when it bought them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/busin ... 7auto.html

Tata Motors completes acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover
http://www.tatamotors.com/our_world/pre ... ction=Pull

It would have been nice if Dodge had saved the money and put it into the Grand Cherokee by increasing engine choices (diesel) and also by make a new Grand Cherokee SRT again. It would be a lot cheaper than making another clone car.

InCommando · **Posted:** Sat Jul 24, 2010 6:48 pm

I actually knew tata owned them and pointed it out to vagibond in a rover thread recently....dern oldtimers....

Tokyojoe · **Posted:** Sat Jul 24, 2010 9:40 pm

IC,

I only used Land Rover as a reference that no company is copying their vehicles to have copycats like the Liberty has the Nitro and now the Grand C has the ummm....Durango (which had very similar brake lights as the Liberty a few years ago). Dodge-Chrysler has made Jeep look like Dodge-Chryslers or the other way around. It only hurts Jeep. I am surprised that they haven't tried to steal/copy the Wrangler/Rubicon look yet.

InCommando · **Posted:** Sun Jul 25, 2010 12:23 am

Unfortunately, that has been the way here for many decades. In some ways it works, in others it doesn't. It aided Toy & Honda, for example, as they only had one nameplate to count as sales to be #1 in CARS where if you aided up the same product that GM sold under 2 or 3 names it would have been a different story. (F150 & C1500 sales over the last 25 years destroy camry sales, so I emphasized "car"). Add Monte Carlo, Grand Prix, Regal, & Cutlass sales and it paints a very different picture of GM's success with thse models which are actually one basic design.

I was pointing out that there may be a reason not to dulpicate a LR under a different nameplate: they don't sell enough as LR's to justify it. It didn't have to be any LR, it would apply to any low-volume niche make. Why copy a 911 when their world wide sales wouldn't support GM for a week?

Although the Nitro is based on the original KJ platform's evolution that became the KK, I think you will find that the Nitro actually beat the KK Liberty to the market.

I think you see this ending to some degree with plymouth, olds, pontiac, saturn, & mercury biting it. But platform sharing is still popular and does occur everywhere.

In case you did not realize it, a camry is a lexus ES. An Accord is an Acura TL, A highlander is an RX. it goes on and on. The Mazda 3 & Ford focus share much, and several recent Mazda's have been flat re-badged fords. Honda bought isuzus and rebadged them. The japanese in particular are just as guilty of platform sharing as any domestic make. I am not sure you get this based on the country of ownership comments in your first post.

KJ 119 · **Posted:** Sun Jul 25, 2010 9:37 am

InCommando wrote:

Add Monte Carlo, Grand Prix, Regal, & Cutlass sales and it paints a very different picture of GM's success with thse models which are actually one basic design.

This was one Baaaad copycat!

InCommando · **Posted:** Sun Jul 25, 2010 10:54 am

I soooo wanted a GN-X.

Tokyojoe · **Posted:** Sun Jul 25, 2010 6:10 pm

That is why the Japanese automakers are suffering now (aside from the recall issues). They have followed the current platform of American automakers. Just take a popular vehicle and rebadge it with a few other trinkets and sell it as another company's vehicle. Dilution.

I was sad to see Pontiac and Olds go. Plymouth for the longest time just became a company copying Dodge and Chrysler. No real distinct vehicles of its own. Same has happened to Mercury and is going bye bye. No distinct models of its own. Puppets to the larger company's of Ford and Dodge.

Jeep only has the Wrangler/Rubicon as its distinct vehicle. The other models have a copy of some sort.

Khaki-KJ · **Posted:** Sun Jul 25, 2010 8:17 pm

My neighbour up the street has a GN, or possibly a GNX, it never stays still long enough to find out. It sounds incredible. I have no idea what he has done to it, but even a light touch on the gas pedal and that car just sounds mean.

The GNs were like Darth Vader, the GNX looks like Darth Vader, but you know that Chuck Norris climbed inside, beat the crap out of the force and took over.

New Dodge version of the Grand Chero

Who is online