In America, it’s pretty hard to send a car back to its maker. Sure, manufacturers occasionally take stewardship of museum pieces, but mere used cars? That’s unusual. So, when Stellantis reported that it had sold negative one Chrysler 200 in the first quarter of 2024, our collective eyebrows were raised.
How does an automaker sell negative one of a car, especially a model that was nixed from the portfolio years ago?
If you’ve wiped all memory of Chrysler’s last midsize sedan nameplate from your mind, allow me to offer a refresher. The first Chrysler 200 was a warmed-over Chrysler Sebring launched with an Eminem-featuring Super Bowl ad that, in hindsight, is probably one of the most ridiculous celebrity co-signs ever. I mean, the Chrysler 200 being endorsed by Marshall Mathers makes the implication of LeBron James daily driving a Kia K900 seem believable. However, a second-generation model arrived for the 2015 model year, and instead of sharing bones with a Dodge Journey, it shared a platform with the Alfa Romeo Giulietta. Hey, that’s progress.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough progress. While the range-topping 3.6-liter all-wheel-drive model was alarmingly potent in the same manner as a Taco Bell Chipotle Chicken melt with Fire sauce, the base 2.4-liter four-banger powertrain just didn’t cut it. In a 2014 road test of the four-cylinder model, Car And Driver noted improvement, but not enough to put the Chrysler at the head of the pack. As per the mag:
Although the new-from-the-ground-up 200 is a fully baked product, we can’t help but feel that drivers with sporting intentions will find it a little on the light side of hearty. The 200 doesn’t have the poor-man’s Bentley street presence of its larger 300 sidekick, either. In a segment flush with blue-ribbon entries that manage to mix four-door practicality with genuine fun-to-drive character, the 200 is still a few ingredients short of being top-shelf material.
Perhaps as a result, the second-generation Chrysler 200 had a short lifespan, entering production in March of 2014 and exiting stage left in December of 2016. Despite the last one having long since departed from Stellantis’ Sterling Heights, Mich. assembly plant, however, the nameplate continues to haunt sales charts like a mischievous specter.
How does an automaker sell less than zero cars? Is this just a matter of reconciling data? Was there some sort of buyback that occurred, or is something even stranger going on? Our own Mark Tucker wonders if Stellantis “thought they sold it and found it in a dusty corner,” and while that seems entirely possible given the nature of the 200, it’s still on the farfetched side of things. At the same time, considering this thing was discontinued more than seven years ago, that should’ve given Stellantis plenty of time to take care of a statistical error.
Needless to say, we reached out to Stellantis on this and will update this story if we hear back. Our best guess is that this is just Stellantis correcting past data, but it still seems odd. All we can say for now is that this is a deeply weird figure, albeit one that’s published in a real quarterly sales report. If anything, it might serve as a metaphor for finding joy in life’s drudgery. Even within a subject, most find deeply boring, you might stumble upon some bizarre and amusing stuff.
(Photo credits: Chrysler)
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“[M]anufacturers occasionally take stewardship of museum pieces”
And then there’s this:
https://japanesenostalgiccar.com/toyota-cressida-x30-prius-land-speed-record-crusher/
🙁
Given the reliability record I see on these I’m choosing to believe it was somehow lemon lawed 7 years later, haha.
So… we can look forward to a zombie sale of a 200 sometime in the future?
I discovered monthly sales charts at Automotive News years ago, and they’ve been my obsession ever since. You need to be a subscriber however to get the detailed print version where it’s broken down furthest by model. Such fun to pore through. It was a sad day for me when many of the OEMs began reporting only quarterly.
Since I opted to buy a van with the same face, I obviously thought the 200 was a pretty good looking car. They were certainly a pretty good deal with the V6. Considering that Chrysler sold hardly any of these, I’m surprised that I see as many of them still putting around, and not looking totally ratted out.
It also replaced the repulsive Sebring/first gen 200, and even if it may have failed to sell, that might be one of the biggest generation to generation improvements of a nameplate that has ever happened.
Edit: That topshot made me think of the dreaded Toyota “Saved by Zero” commercial, and now I can’t get it out of my head. Thanks.
“This car doesn’t fit me anymore – and there’s a ripped seam in the seat. I want to return it”
“Lady, this isn’t LL Bean.”
Now Cosco on the other hand…
They’ll probably accept your kids if you tried to return them.
Ok, I’ll say my tepid take: I actually really like the way these look in the higher trims.
That said, when your quirky CEO calls them unfit for humans, it can’t help sales, except to non-humans (monkeys? Aliens? Robots?).
I thought that was only for the Commander?
Last I remember, the 200 (and Dart) got a negative press run because Sergio said, “they aren’t making money in those segments”. Like the 500 EV.
Yeah I believe you’re right, Sergio was referring to the Commander, which was a Daimler/Cerberus nightmare product. The quote:
“That vehicle was unfit for human consumption. We sold some. But I don’t know why people bought them.”
Lol, I certainly agree with him.
I sit corrected.
Sergio said the 200 was too small for its segment, I believe.
Mazda also has that problem. They’re VERY small on the inside compared to their competition, since the new generation stuff started coming out in 2014/2015. Didn’t stop me from buying 2 of them though.
It wouldn’t stop me either. Neither of us are tall or big.
Eh, I’m 6’0, 270lbs and very broad. I don’t fit all that well in the back of our Mazda 6’s, especially with a baby seat. We’re looking into getting rid of our older 6 and getting a Tahoe. Something spacious, cheap to maintain, and easy to wrench on. We were considering a Ford Flex, but wrenching on a transverse mounted V6 is a pain in the ass.
The two of us together are 320 lbs and each of us under 6 feet. It’s good to know we can fit in a Ferrari, even if we can’t afford one!
I also had a soft spot for the 200. I test drove one once out of curiosity, and actually liked it.
Negative one (-1) is a commonly used placeholder that means “no data.” When playing with data in the world of spreadsheets, there must be some value in that spot. A zero cannot be used, because zero is a real number. It cannot be left blank, because that will mess with the column formatting. This is just the numerical equivalent of “this page is intentionally left blank.” The only real question is why a spot for the 200 remains in the data table seven years after discontinuation.
Because the 200 is the equivalent of „intentionally left blank“ for the car type column
When these came out I kinda wanted one because that two tone black and white steering wheel and interior was pretty sweet
I’m kind of drawn to that cockpit with all the dials and buttons…
Knowing the Chrysler 200 is based on the same platform as the Alfa Romeo Giulietta makes me want one. The Chrysler 200 may not be something I imagine to be a fun drive, but a Giulietta sure is, and the Chrysler 200 is not a bad looking car by any means.
Granted, it turns out they’re not exactly the same platform… the Giulietta has a shorter wheelbase and might be a bit narrower as well. But I’m still captivated by the thought that forbidden-fruit Alfa Romeo bits might transfer to the Chrysler 200.
We may not be able to enjoy the Giulietta here in the states, but if someone were to import all the mechanical and suspension bits of one and install them on a Chrysler 200 you could have a pretty nifty little sports sedan.
And to anyone saying “What about emissions??? How are you gonna make a European Alfa Romeo engine pass emissions in a Chrysler 200?” my answer is that I live in a state with no emissions tests so that’s not a problem. Also neener neener :p
Slowest and worst money laundering scheme ever
At Stellantis, car sells you!
A customer finally convinced the dealer to pay them to take it off their hands!
I’m guessing some sort of correction to the last quarter in which there was a reported sale has caused a negative sale now. Somehow unnoticed in their books, they did some checking and made a correction.
Lemon Law. They had to buy it back.
It was sold and the the finance guy sobered up and realized they had financed it over 96 months
I’m laughing way too hard at this, that all too common scenario where you get the proof of your booze and your loan term mixed up before realizing they’re the same number.
Finance guy only cares if they make the first 3-4 payments; after that they can’t claw back his commission.
I kind of feel bad for this car… They finally finished designing the Neon 20 years later and had a decent looking and overall OK car, and then killed it after a very short while.
It’s a bit perplexing that it didn’t at least sell better than the face-lifted Sebring it replaced, since it was certainly a better car than that, if nothing else.
But the old Sebring/200 sold 122,500 in 2013, its last full year on the market, and 200 sales dropped to 117,000 during the change-over year in 2014, when both generations were sold. The new 200 did move 179,000 in 2015, its first full year, which was a recent record for Chrysler in the midsize sedan category – the Sebring nameplate maxed out at 118,500 way back in 2001, and the first gen 200 had topped out at 135,000 in 2012 – but, for some reason, that year one high point was an anomaly and it crashed and burned fast after that. Down 66% in 2016, with production ending on December 6th.
It’s a bit weird that, when the 200’s discontinuation was announced, it had had only 1 full calendar year of sales under its belt, and that was the best sales year for any Chrysler brand intermediate in at least 25 years, but wasn’t good enough to justify keeping the car. If it was to end reliance on fleet sales, that seems like a hollow excuse, since FCA US/Stellantis North America certainly didn’t pull back on fleet volume as a whole, so it would be weird to single out only one category to do that, and the Cirrus, Sebring, and 200 had always been big fleet sellers, they knew that going in in the first place
2015 was actually Chrysler’s best-ever sales year for a midsize car, the LeBaron topped out at 142,500 in 1987, and the Cirrus peaked at 60,500 in 1995. At the time the discontinuation of the Mk2 200 was announced, it was technically the best selling Chrysler midsize car, ever
Maybe a buyback with no sales to counter it? Doesn’t require much thinking. A lemon law car or just a bad vehicle.
Opposite of a sale would be a buyback in my mind
Yes just I said. Not sure why smartercar minds than mine didn’t think of it or maybe going for click bait? Buttons site would not do that would they?
But the car has been out of production for 7 years. Why would they buy one back NOW? That’s what I don’t get.
Maybe to keep a problem out of the media? Or buy back from a dealer who used it as a dealer transport? I answered how it could happen as asked not why?
Lemon Laws are based on sale date, not production date, correct?
True. I guess that one they sold in 2022 got Lemon Lawed in 2023.
I was also thinking Lemon Law buyback.
Poor 200. You were perfectly cromulent and just happened to come out at the worst possible time imaginable.
It wasn’t a terrible car at the time, it mostly had the misfortune of being the poor man’s Fusion.
You had to be a pretty hardcore Mopar fan to choose it, given the options available. Which means SWG is likely hard at work looking for one/Thomas contacted Stellantis “for a friend.”
Yeah, it was a middling car in a highly competitive space. Without the momentum of a history of long-standing excellence in the midsize arena to carry it, it really needed to be at the top of the pack to make an impression on buyers, and it just wasn’t. “Just sort of OK” wasn’t good enough.
I think you and Thomas are right on that it just didn’t stand out, esp. the way that the 300 did. Those had presence, and were like nothing else on the road.
I get that the Caliber debacle kinda stung Chrysler for trying to do “tough” styling across the board, but perhaps it should have gone farther with the 200, instead of just “not too distant future” like it ended up doing.
So at the time everyone was putting out small to midsized cars. Due to too much competition it was not profitable. Now Noone makes them. At any time does the Big 3 think make a smart decision and decide 1 or 2 companies could do it profitably? Heck the miata seems to be profitable.
Yeah, and technically, the 200 was the most successful midsize car Chrysler ever sold – in real numbers, it’s only full calendar year on the market was 2015, and the 200 sold more copies that year than any Chrysler brand intermediate in history, beating the Sebring, Cirrus, LeBaron, and previous 200. And the following year, they announced it was being discontinued.
Maybe it was because they wanted to get out of fleet sales, but that rings hollow, because the FCA US lineup remained stacked with fleet queens even without the 200, so why focus on that one? Or, maybe it was because they set unrealistic sales goals in the first place, and it was a failure judged against those, even if it wasn’t in an absolute sense?
Dead on as always, Jack! I’ve been drooling over a V6 top-trim 200 for years now!
Come to papa!
After getting one as a loaner for a week or so, I was definitely confused by the hate for it. It wasn’t anything special, but it was.. fine. Decent-looking, decently comfortable, drove fine. It was the Pentastar version though, and not the apparently-terrible Tigershark.
>dealer had one sitting around that they had been using as a lot pig/loaner for nigh on a decade
>customer bought it for peanuts
>bought back because lemon or because Chrysler product or something
Even the new 200 was a poor excuse for a car. I had one as a rental back in the day. Gutless, loud and thirsty. Plus the rearview mirror was oddly low when I was positioned comfortably. Just…..no.
A Chrysler 200 customer awakened from their meth-induced stupor just before expiration of the 3 day no-fault return period.
Honestly, if it was meth induced, they were probably just still awake and possibly coming down enough to realize meth wasn’t the worst thing they’d done in the last 72 hours.
It’s a shame, had they not offered the crap 4-cylinder and maybe just worked out the rear entry a little bit, it might have been a great car. It still looks pretty sharp in my eyes. As for -1, I am guessing some salesman took one for a weekend during the last reporting period and they mistakenly counted it as a sale.
If they buy back a lemon does that count as a negative sale?
Maybe, but the car has been out of production for 7 years, and the Lemon Law only goes for 1-2 years depending on the state.
While this is true, if it was kept on a dealer lot as a loaner and never titled/registered, wouldn’t it still technically be “new” if it was sold in the last two years, and then potentially eligible for a lemon law buyback? (I think the warranty period would also start once it is titled to a real person).
I seem to remember seeing a 200 on one of those end of year articles. Like “someone bought a brand new Chrysler 200 in 2022”
Per this website, Chrysler reported sales of three 200s in 2023, and three in 2022 (sales figures in 2018, a full model year after the 200’s demise, were over 1,000), so theoretically it could be a buyback of one of these recently sold cars.
Or maybe it’s a Benjamin Button situation: over the course of this year, two more 200s will return to Chrysler, then three more next year, and on and on until all the 200s ever made have gone back and are just sitting in some massive field somewhere outside Sterling Heights….
I could definitely see a 2016 sold as new in 2023 getting immediately lemon-lawed due to issues from sitting for years.
Yeah, I guess that would be possible.
From build date or sales date?