- [James] What do you get when you take a Hatchback,
a Hot rod, a Truck, a Station wagon,
an old person's car, a young person's car,
retro styling, factory flame decals, and Brian Setzer?
A big ol' mess is what you get.
(Explosion)
(Car engines roar)
None of you asked for this episode, but we did it anyway.
This is everything you need to know to get up to speed
on the PT Cruiser.
♪ You gotta jump and jive and then you're ready ♪
♪ Gotta jump and jive and ♪
(Intro music playing)
A big ol' thanks to Omaze for partnering with us
on this episode. Right now, Omaze is giving away a brand new
BMW M8 Competition Coupe. That means free, all right?
You don't pay taxes. You don't pay transport, nothing!
You get 617 HRSPRS, all wheel drive,
and an 8 speed transmission with Merino Leather seats
and a limited edition paint scheme
plus, 20,000 freakin' dollars cash.
Every donation gives you a chance to win
and benefits the Ronald Reagan Medical Center at UCLA,
the same people that saved my life.
Every donation will help them buy ECMO heart machines,
which are crucial in saving lives of heart attack victims.
To show your support for me being alive,
and uh- your support of other people in the future
remaining alive, and your chance to win an awesome car
and bunch of cash Go to Omaze.com/donut
for your chance to win.
If you win, I will go to lunch with you,
you have to pay though
'cause you're a twenty-thousandaire.
Thanks Omaze.
(beep)
In the late 70's Chrysler was hurtin'.
The third largest auto maker in Detroit was waging
a losing war on two fronts. On one side was the oil crisis,
which caused fuel prices in the US to skyrocket.
On the other side, Japan saw America's need
for more fuel efficient cars, and they freakin' delivered,
and America freakin' gobbled 'em gobbled 'em up.
Is that a Civic? (chewing)
What is that, a Corolla? (chewing)
What is that, a Sentra? (chewing)
(Stretching sound)
I don't have any room left in my belly for American cars.
By the time American car companies realized they had
to switch thangs up, the Japanese brands were already ahead.
Chrysler desperately needed a new model that could compete.
- This today is not a laser and light show,
this is strictly a product, an engineering show
and maybe you'll be bored by it, I don't know.
- [James] Lee Iacocca, Lee Iacocca! Put the plan into action
developing the platform for the "K Car"
and a designer at Chrysler by the name of Tom Gale,
helped bring the K Car platform to life.
K Cars like the Dodge Aries, and Plymouth Reliant
were boxy and boring, no frills.
But, they were exactly what parent company,
Chrysler needed.
Despite their subdued appearance
these cars sold fantastically well.
From 1981 to 1988 Chrysler sold 300,000 of these things
every freakin' year, but now Chrysler had another
issue to deal with.
People now viewed their brand as boring, and painted
various shaded of beige.
Beige is my favorite color.
Oh yeah, why is that?
Uh, it looks great on Cargo shorts,
on Cargo vests, Cargo hats, cargo jeans, Cargo jackets.
Hm, anyway by the late 1980's Plymouth sister company Dodge
was rebranding and trying to turn their image around.
(Engine roaring)
The Viper prototype debuted at the 1989 Detroit Auto Show
and ooh Baby!
People freakin' loved it!
Seemingly overnight it transformed Dodge
from the sleepy Grandpa brand it was in the 80's
into a performance leader.
Plymouth watched as their cool big brother got buff
in the front yard and they were like,
"I wanna be a big buff guy too".
Tom Gale bein' a Hot rod dude at heart
threw around a couple of concepts
but it was a project by a student at the
Art Center College of Design by the name of
Douglas Foose AKA Chip!
- [Douglas] You know the world doesn't need another Hot rod,
but the greatest thing about this industry
is it's a hundred percent passion driven.
- [James] His design, "The Hemisphere" was sleek,
aggressive, and it hearkened back to the 1930's era
of Hot rods.
Tom Gayle was immediately intrigued by Chip's project.
The final product, the Prowler concept was fun,
and radical and unlike any other car on the road.
It had a sharp angled grill, aggressive look
and indie style wheels.
The two seater would be constructed with aluminum and
composite materials, a technique far outside of the
K car makers' "wheelhouse".
Get it?
The debut of the Prowler was one up by numerous
"over the top" reveals at that show.
1993 was a good year to be at the Detroit Auto Show.
Porsche unveiled their new car, The Boxster,
and Plymouth's cool older buff brother Dodge
unveiled the Ram pickup.
Once again, Dodge had hit a home run
so Plymouth got jealous all over again
and started designing a more practical version
of the Prowler,
but with the same Heritage styling.
So in 1997 the Plymouth Pronto concept debuted,
it was an affordable, fun, five door concept
that had visible styling cues from the Prowler,
specifically the pointed grill and split bumper
and it came in a color called 'Cool Vanilla'.
Which is coincidentally the stage name I use
when I play sax in my band Sax Evasion.
(Saxophone playing)
(Cheering)
A year later the Pronto Spyder concept was released
this two door roadster had
a 2.4 liter turbo charged 4 cylinder mid mounted engine
that made 225 hrspr and it was small it only weighed
2,700 pounds.
Soon after Chrysler debuted the all wheel drive
Pronto Cruiser with a Z!
Are you kiddin' me, that's so cool!
(Engine revving)
Meanwhile, the production Plymouth Prowler debuted
in 1998 and was immediately met with criticism.
Sure, people loved the radical styling but Plymouth
did a little oopsie in the pant and only offered it
with a very boring V6.
(Record Scratch)
Could've had a V8.
Despite the lukewarm reception, Chrysler didn't consider
it to be a failure.
It was never meant to be a volume car, the Prowler
was an experiment in the production of aluminum cars.
That's what us in the biz call Big Picture Stuff.
(Tires Sliding)
Chrysler debuted the PT Cruiser concept at the 1999
Detroit International Auto Show.
PT stood for Personal Transit,
by the turn of the new millennium
(Explosion)
You know, when we all died?
Chrysler had created a lot of positive buzz around
the car and people couldn't wait to find out
what this heritage Hot rod wagon thing was all about,
it was a tall and stout utilitarian Hot rod
with a bunch of space.
It looked vaguely familiar, but also
no one had seen anything like it ever before!
(Lightning strike)
(Engine roaring)
Engineers and designers used a VR and DMA,
a cab type system to structure the PT.
These programs were extremely helpful in development
as engineers could use Virtual Reality
to assemble components and ensure the proper fit
before a physical prototype was ever built.
After years of hard work and testing,
the dream of Chrysler and Tom Gale
was about to materialize.
Finally, you've been talking about freakin' VR
for like a hour now.
I missed you Buddy.
- What the?
(Guitar music playing)
- [James] The PT Cruiser had a wheelbase of 103 inches,
stood tall at 63 inches high and weighed just over
3000 pounds.
It was basically a a lil' box, and all the seats
except for the Driver seat folded down
thanks to the use of a Twist Beam Axle and
Watts linkage.
Standard engine that we got was a 2.4 liter inline 4,
that made 150 hrsprs and that was shared
by the Chrysler Cirrus, Dodge Stratus.
"I drive a Dodge Stratus!"
And the Plymouth Breeze.
The interior also had a very unique style,
in it a four spoke steering wheel,
deep set gauges, color matched dash panels
and a cue ball style shifter.
Although it didn't look much like a truck, the PT Cruiser
is designated as a light truck
in order to pass stringent emission laws.
They planned to build 180,000 the first year,
but then they ran into a problem.
The Engine Bay only had .6 of an inch clearance
for the Engine because it had been engineered
to use every last bit of space.
They had to slow production down and retrain everyone
but eventually the got the hang of
stuffing the engines in and production got back up to
speed.
(Whoosh)
- [James] Hey guys what's up, James here from the video
that you're watching now.
I just want to interrupt myself to let you know about
a really exciting new project that we got going on
here at Donut.
It's called "Money Pit",
we have a new project car, a beautiful NA Miata
and every week we're gonna show you how to work on
a different aspect of the car.
You wanna learn what parts of your car do?
You wanna learn how to fix 'em and replace them?
This is the show for you, and Zach Jobe my team high
from High Low companion is just the guy to do it
and luckily he's hostin' the show.
So it's every Wednesday, it's really cool uh
make sure you watch it so that we're allowed
to buy more cars and work on 'em.
Encourage you to build along, let's do it.
(Beep)
PT Cruiser, you're probably not even watching anymore.
(Laughs)
In it's first year of production Chrysler sold
175,000 PT Cruisers across 58 different countries.
It even won Motor Trend's car of the year in 2001.
Dealers couldn't keep 'em in stock and soon
the waitlist filled up.
Enthusiasm for the Cruiser matched and even surpassed
that of the new Beetle.
It was relatively cheap, fun and had a cool factor
which is how moms describe things.
But the most exciting has to be
♪ You gotta jump and jive and then you're ready ♪
♪ Gotta jump and jive and ♪
The Brian Setzer V-Voom Setzer Cruiser,
it featured a built in guitar rack,
an amp in the cab and the word V-Voom on the fender
to promote Setzer's album.
" I would love to get my hands on one of those
sweet sweet bad boys"
In 2001 they debuted the PT Woody and Dream Cruiser.
The Woody was a limited run of 1,000 cars in a 1960's
surf wagon style and apparently it was a collaboration
with the East Coast based Ron Jon Surf Shop.
Cool.
The Dream Cruiser was named after an annual event
in Detroit, Every year up to 1,500,000 people
and 30,000 cars cruise Woodward St., one of the best
"Cruise Strips" in the US.
They came in Inca Gold with gold colored
Matrix Leather seats,
in Europe they were called "Street Cruiser".
They only made 7,500 of these and had number plaques
in the middle console.
(Engine roaring
The PT Cruiser was meant to appeal to a younger audience
it was cheap, customizable and most importantly
unique, but when Chrysler took a look
at who was actually buying it, they were quite surprised.
♪ I'm talkin bout the cat in the PT Cruiser ♪
Turns out when you build a car that's meant to look
like it was a car from the 30's
the only people that buy that car are the ones who lived
through the 30's.
It doesn't matter if the customers were old or not,
PT Cruisers were still selling.
2002 was the first year you could get your
PT Cruiser with flame decals from the factory.
Chrysler's like, " young people like flames right?"
"young people like power right?"
So they added a little bit mo of it!
(Engine Revving)
The PT Cruiser GT Turbo high output had an updated version
of the Turbo Charged 2.4 liter 4 cylinder,
and now made 220 hrspr.
It could do 0 to 60 in 7.5 seconds which is not great
and for 28 Grand which is about $41,000 today
it wasn't worth it.
Again, Chrysler was sending mixed signals,
on one hand they wanted to give the kids
the mo' power baby,
but on the other hand what kid can afford a $41,000
retro car?
(Classical music)
2004 marked the first year PT Convertibles went on sale
and fans had been holding their breath
since the concept debuted 4 years earlier.
It took so long because instead of retrofitting an already
existing PT the Convertible had to be completely redesigned.
Nothing from the A-pillar back on the convertible
was interchangeable with regular PT Cruisers.
It was also very quiet, another thing that old people love
it was said that you could have a picnic table conversation
with your passenger while the top was down.
Oh, just talk about as loud as you would talk
at a (Beep) picnic table.
The (Beep) does that mean?
The regular PT was updated as well
with the new front.
From the outside it would seem like a small change
but to PT loyalists
this was a freakin' slap in the face alright?
So much so that they call any Cruiser from 2004 on
"The Second Gen".
Even though, technically there's only one
generation over the lifespan of the PT.
(Game Show music)
PT car people are the most
intimidating type of car people,
because why the (Beep) do they like it?
(Engine running)
The general public also began to turn
on the Heritage Cruiser, maybe it was the
lame corporate custom mods.
Maybe it was that Michael Scott drove one on "The Office".
(Pop music playing)
- [Michael] It's Britney Bitch.
- [James] Despite all the short comings
Chrysler sold a butt load of 'em.
By the time production ended in 2010
over one million PT Cruisers were sold.
If there's one thing that can be said about the
PT Cruiser, it's that it didn't look
like anything else on the road.
It may have been a little bit out of touch
but their experiment with aluminum construction
was a success.
Thank you so much for watching,
we got a lot of new stuff in the works.
We're gonna have shows every single day,
make sure you subscribe and hit that bell
to make sure that you don't miss any of it.
Follow Donut on Twitter and Instagram
at Donut Media,
follow me on Twitter and Instagram
at James Pumphrey.
If you want some Donut merch go to DonutMedia.com
our newest item I'm really excited about these
it's enamel pins that we made with Lean Customs
now if you know anything about car pins
you'll know that Lean Customs is a really really
great name in the biz, we're super excited about these.
DonutMedia.com
I love you.