Dodge CEO Matt McAlear acknowledges demand for sub $30,000 sports car and admits that there’s a market for one as more customers want an affordable performance car.
Dodge CEO Matt McAlear recently confirmed that there is a market for a sub $30,000 halo sports car as the brand continues to produce models like the Attitude in international markets.
It has been a very long time since Dodge had an affordable sports car for budget-minded performance car buyers. The last icon in that regard was the Dodge Neon-based SRT-4 which rewrote what an affordable performance model should be. Its clumsy successor the Dodge Caliber SRT-4 was the forgotten sequel and the brand didn’t follow up with a trilogy when the slow selling Dodge Dart was in production.
As a result, customers looking for an affordable performance car had to go to Honda, Hyundai, or Ford for their fix with Dodge being left out in the cold. This might be soon changing, with Dodge brand CEO Matt McAlear confirming the market is still there for an affordable halo sports car and that consumer demand is still strong enough for such a model.
Affordability continues to be a problem for Dodge
A model like this would be a key cog in helping the brand solve an affordability problem that hs been causing sales to slide.
McALear’s recent comments come as the brand struggles with an affordability problem that has caused its sales to slide. The Charger Daytona EV is its newest offering and the brand’s first pure EV but its high pricing also causes some potential buyers to be priced out. The Dodge Hornet CUV was supposed to be the gateway model for the brand, but it has been a slow-moving train wreck for the brand with its own high pricing ladder stunting sales and forcing angry dealerships to massively discount the CUV to get it to move off their lots.
“I think there’s a market for people who just want to have that weekend car again,” he told The Drive, noting that not everyone can, or wants to, spend six figures on a sports car. He added that sometimes people want “just a car” that’s not packed with expensive technology. Dodge hasn’t confirmed it is producing such a model in the future, but McLear said that if it does, it must be an original design that can have the same level of appeal as the Viper. This simple appeal helped breathe life into the SRT-4 and this reverse halo effect could help bring in more buyers and allow Dodge to regain some of the luster it once had as an aspirational brand for new buyers looking to get their first car.
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CUVs and an era of V8s might kill project before it gets off the ground
Dodge will have several obstacles in the way of such a project including the popularity of CUV models and marketing that put V8s firmly in the minds of consumers.
The main obstacle that a potential budget sports car will face is the overwhelming presence of crossover vehicles in the marketplace. It’s no secret that the explosion of popularity for these models the past few decades has come at the cost of compact cars and sports cars with the field of entries in both of these segments dwindling during the past few years as more buyers are drawn to a CUV for its practicality and passenger hauling abilities.
There are still some diamonds in the rough if one looks closely with the iconic Mazda Miata, Subaru BRZ, Toyota GR86, and even the Ford Mustang four-cylinder still making a name for themselves. This also exposes another problem for Dodge and that’s trying to get customers who might have forgotten about their past four-cylinder models. While this can easily forgiven for blunders like the Caliber SRT-4, many of the buyers for the original Neon-derived SRT-4 were Gen X and very early Millenials who might have now forgotten about the model after all of these years.
Dodge certainly didn’t help things either with the brand putting nearly all of its marketing energy on V8-powered models like the Dodge Challenger and Charger with the brand also making the pricey SRT versions of these vehicles the proverbial halo models in their respective lineups. However, Dodge is also known for being a brand that occasionally likes to roll the dice and take a risk when it comes to pursuing an idea and it will be interesting if the brand continues this trend with an entry-level sports car entry.
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