FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobile) already confirmed that they are putting the Dodge Dart on production halt. The auto market was expecting this turn for months, because ever since the Dart was born, it lived a rough life.
This compact sedan carried a lot of expectations under its roof, it is built to help Dodge (FCA) recover from 2009 bankruptcy. Chrysler's 2009 bankruptcy agreement, demanded that bailed-out Chrysler builds a 40-mpg car in the U.S. With that said, the Dart was built and expected to land bullseye in the target market and redeem the company.
Plans started to work out and the first salable Dart went out the assembly line in Belvidere, Ill., in May 2012. The bankruptcy agreement was met and Dart was a 40-mpg U.S.-built car.
However, the intended new nine-speed automatic transmission from ZF Friedrichshafen didn't happen to make up Dart like they planned. This could provide better fuel economy which is a big factor for the sedan to sell.
They instead went for the off-the-shelf Hyundai six-speed automatic and a Fiat-sourced dual-dry clutch six-speed automatic for the Dart.
With this transmission issues, the initial batch of Darts that went out in 2012 had only manual transmissions. This did certainly affect the sales of the new car and was off to a very slow start of 25,304 Dart sales in 2012.
It went well in the next years but eventually issues arise and this car didn't quite get the attention of the market.
Marchionne, Dodge's CEO laid the business plan to build seven vehicles along with Dart that shares the Dart's CUSW platform in the U.S. between 2009 and 2014.
The initial plan of seven ended up being only 2 cars, this is when the Jeep Cherokee and the Chrysler 200 was born. The Cherokee started well and still making good sales, but the Chrysler 200 went down the hill with Dart.
After 4 years and 4 months on the market, Dart is decided to be withdrawn because of the declined sales since May 2015.
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