I was browsing the Wiki on the topic of the Super Bird as the local exotic dealer just sold one recently. I'd never seen one up close, so I started poking around the web. The Super Bird site gives a link to the Super Bee page, which has a photo of the new Dodge Super Bee.

ITS A 4 door car!!!

What's up with that. The original was all trunk, pretty fugly to boot, but this thing is like some soccer mom commuter car with a massive engine in it.
Super Bee on the Wikipedia site

 

Yeah, I saw it when it was introduced earlier this year.

Why are you so surprised? Charger is also a 4 door sedan.

 

Why are you suprized? If it were a 2 door car NOBODY would buy one. Currently there is really only room for one 2 door midsized car in todays market.....The Mustang.
Just look at the abysmal sales of the GTO. GM really shot them selves in the foot with this model. If they had been smart they would have imported and rebadged the 4 door Holden, used the same powertrains and called it a Le Mans. Sales would have been triple to quadruple the sales figures of the 2 door GTO

Heck the new mazda RX is even a 4 door now.


I know that when I'm in the market for a car that 2 door models are not even concidered.

 

there is a GTO on the market? i didn't even know!

 

My point exactly!...It's been on the market for a couple three years now.

 

Ummm...it's not really a GTO. Pretty much everything I've heard and read is that while it has some performance, it's an unreliable POS, made to have as high of HP as possible with as cheap of parts as possible.

Jason

 

i just looked at the GTO online, no wonder it doesn't sell, its just a fancy grand prix, not much imagination there, and the back looks like a cobalt.

 

Its a Super Bee, not some commuter car.

There are plenty of 2 doors around, the Mustang, the Corvette, the Viper, the list goes on and on.

Dodge would have been better advised putting the Super Bee label on the Viper not the Charger. And the other BTW: What's up with putting a 4 door model on a Charger?

 

I was in denial for a few weeks after I saw the first tv ads for the charger, then I actually saw one... why they did it I don't know, but I guess they're kinda cool. They bear a striking resemblance to the 300C; when you drive by the dealership and they have them side by side, they look like teh same car, I imagine is just a shell game car where they put a slightly different body on an existing chassis.

Also, I think they can get away with something like using the chassis of a big car with those models because they were big cars to begin with. Not something they could do with the challenger or cuda, I don't think.

 

People seem to forget that back in the 60's just about any sterotypical "muscle" car had a 4door and wagon variant.

Face it the MIDSIZED 2 door car is dead in this country. Thunderbird DEAD, Camaro DEAD, Monte Carlo soon to be DEAD, Eldorado DEAD, Cutlass DEAD, Linclon Mark series DEAD. If it's midsized has a backseat and has 2 doors unless it's a Mustang nobody will buy one.

How many of you guys who are wringing thier hands over a 4 door charger would be willing to make due with 2 doors for the family car.............

 

the styling (or lack of) was the major fault of the GTO, looked liked a hopped up Grand Am or GP, not a standout bay any means. The Camaros died because GM really didn't put the effort into style to keep new buyers interested. I would have preferred to see a 2 door option on the Chargers... And the Charger and 300 are built on the same platform. Foose did a swap on a Charger with a 300C front clip, mostly a straight swap. The domestics have been too focused on SUV's to pay attention to what the buyers truly want, and how to keep long standing favorites going. You would have to do a lot of talking and research to convince me that they really tried everything they could to keep the Camaro and Firebird alive... the 90's Camaros just weren't that great. Motors were pretty hot, but styling was not.

 

I thought Foose did a Magnum wagon?

 

Oops, I bet you're right... still trades parts with the Charger though... all 3 do.

 

Yeah, that kind of echos my feelings on this matter.

On the subject of the domestic car. I think that's why Honda, Toyota, and Volkwagen are cleaning up, and why BMW is still strong - they are producing vehicles that are more than simply cheap teeny cars or soccer mom transports.

The domestic car producers concentrated so hard on producing SUV's and behemoth blingmobiles that they totally forgot the bread and butter cars - the 2 door mid-sized. I mean, what the heck happened to the Camaro, the Firebird, the Torino, the Impala, those were bread and butter cars for a long long time.

That's why I'm so upset and surprised at the modern Super Bee and the Charger - it doesn't look sporty or tough. It looks like I gave my family car a hot rod paint job.

 

Hope I'm not too far off topic, but I read an article on Honda's hydrogen car, a beautiful 4-door that uses hydrogen converted from a home-based natural gas system.
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