Dodge Dart to join compact-car race

Associated Press

DETROIT

If the new Dodge Dart sells anything like the original, Chrysler will have the small-car hit it needs.

The reinvented compact, which debuts at the Detroit auto show today, is nothing like its predecessor from the 1960s and ’70s. But Chrysler is counting on the Dart, and its zippy name, to help it sell more small cars and continue its recent revival.

Instead of the somewhat boxy lines of the original, the new Dart has the sleek stance of a modern muscle-car, with a short hood, long roof and slightly flared fenders. And it’s based on the frame and suspension of a crisp-handling Alfa Romeo hatchback brought over by Chrysler’s Italian owner, Fiat SpA.

The Dart also is a crucial test of the Chrysler-Fiat alliance, one aimed at saving millions of dollars by reusing Fiat frames, engines and technology, yet giving them an American style with more space for people and gear. The Dart is the first Chrysler designed jointly by the companies.

Chrysler, which ran out of cash and had to be bailed out by the government in 2009, saw sales jump 26 percent last year, and it’s poised to turn its first annual profit since 1997.

Now the automaker needs a breakthrough in the growing small-car market, where it hasn’t had success since the bug-eyed Dodge Neon in the mid-1990s. After nearly failing, Chrysler also realizes it must end its dependence on inefficient SUVs and pickups.

Since the Neon, few have considered Chrysler compacts.

Forty years ago, it was a different story. Back then, Dodge Darts were everywhere. Middle-class Americans bought nearly 3.3 million between 1960 and 1976. Sales peaked in 1974 at more than 340,000 when gasoline was a little over 50 cents per gallon and President Richard Nixon resigned during the Watergate scandal.

Chrysler’s current small-car offering, the Caliber, sold only 35,000 last year, a fraction of the class-leading Toyota Corolla at 240,000. The Caliber can’t compete with rivals such as the Honda Civic, Ford Focus, Hyundai Elantra and Chevrolet Cruze.