Chrysler California Cruiser concept car: concept for family use

Time heals all wounds, they say. Maybe that’s why automakers have no problem destroying their heritage left and right if they think they can make a few bucks off of it, basking in the warm glow of nostalgia. It’s been 21 years since the Chrysler California Cruiser concept car was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show. Some wounds take longer to heal than others.

In 2000, the giant DaimlerChrysler was at the height of its megalomania, and its chief executive Dieter Zetsche was ready to take on the world. The 1930s-inspired PT Cruiser tried to capitalize on the success of BMW’s retro Mini and VW’s New Beetle.

The difference, of course, was that the cars were based on models that people alive at the time could still remember, which is a necessity when deciding if you want to make money from cherished memories. Chrysler’s efforts, in contrast, relied on personal experiences from people who had smuggled alcohol through state lines during Prohibition.

What did DaimlerChrysler want with this Cruiser?

Chrysler’s press release described the car as a “quintessentially American blend of style and performance,” a generous description that made it clear that someone on the PR team had earned their pay that day.

Quite unusual for a concept car: the Chrysler California Cruiser was shown when the PT Cruiser had already been on sale for a year or two, and was intended to test whether there might be interest in a more lifestyle-oriented two-door station wagon. car version. Some wooden panels were added here and there in the style of the 1930s.

Chrysler described the concept car at the time as ‘stop beautiful’. The Public Prosecution Service is silent. No, wait a minute, the Public Prosecution Service still has 200 words. According to the factory, the California offered ‘adequate space and comfort for four people, every imaginable sports gadget and even the possibility of being converted into a hotel room for two’, and leaving us wondering what the other two people were supposed to do.

It’s always summer aboard the California Cruiser

The particularly stylish interior featured a glass roof that spanned the entire length of the car and a folding rear door for ultimate summer fun. You could lay the seats completely flat (no one claimed it was a five-star hotel room), which meant that the mythical board that the product planners at the manufacturer told us we all carried, could also go with us.

At some point someone must have realized that all real travelers drive diesel fuel vans and the whole idea was shelved. Chrysler may have sold over a million PT Cruisers between 2001 and 2010, but it wasn’t the hit that the Beetle, Mini and Fiat 500 became.

The last two have created their own little world of high earners, but it has also been proven that successful looting in the past is not so easy. Even nostalgia must be kept in the same time.