Present tastes are often a shunning of the near past, mixed with a sudden embracing of a slightly older past. This is most notable in fashion, where the ’90s have made a comeback. Curiously, apparel seems to lag automotive, which embraced Clinton-era cars years ago and is moving on to Litwood, post-9/11 appreciation. So what’s the vehicular analog of the sudden reemergence of bucket hats? The PT Cruiser, if you’ll believe it.
Your reaction to this news will undoubtedly age you. If you were older when the little, retro-styled economy car came out you might be pleasantly surprised. If you were young when the PT Cruiser first debuted, you’ll probably be horrified and want to argue that the PT Cruiser cannot be cool again because it was never cool in the first place. If you’re young enough to read Blackbird Spyplane, well, you might love the PT Cruiser.
Why The PT Cruiser Exists
Since approximately 1970 until now, the company that happens to own Chrysler does not know what to do with Chrysler and has to invent some sort of Hail Mary play to save the brand. First it was the K-Car, then the Minivan, then the Dodge Neon. By the time that it became legendary automotive exec Bob Lutz’s turn, the company was yet again adrift.
What would be the solution to Chrysler’s marketplace woes? To get the answer, Lutz turned to a French medical anthropologist and psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Clotaire Rapaille. His whole schtick was getting corporations to tap into their customer’s lizard brains because carbuying, obviously, was not a wholly rational pursuit. This line of thinking would inevitably led to automakers building SUVs with high beltlines and no visibility, but for Chrysler it meant the PT Cruiser.
The PBS feature program Frontline did a great episode on Rapaille called “The Persuaders” and have an interview with him that’s instructive:
When I start[ed] working with Chrysler, they told me: “We have done all the research. We have all the questionnaires and focus groups and everything, and we know Americans don’t want cars anymore. They want trucks; they want big SUVs; they want minivans. They don’t want cars.” And I told them, “I think that maybe you are making a mistake here, because you listen to what people say; I don’t.” So I suggested to Chrysler: “Let’s do some kind of work the way I do this. Let’s try to break the code, understand what is the code. What I believe is they are not buying cars because you’re not delivering the reptilian car they want, but if you find out the reptilian code for car and you make a car, you create a car like that, you’re going to sell it.”
So we did this kind of work. We went back to the first imprint. The result is the PT Cruiser. The PT Cruiser is a car [that] when people see it, they say, “Wow, I want it.” Some people hate it; we don’t care. There is enough people that say, “Wow, I want it,” to make a big success. And then when we tested that, and we say, “How much will you pay for this kind of car?,” people say, “Oh, we’ll pay $15,000 or $35,000.” You know that when you have a product where people say $15,000 or $35,000, the price is irrelevant.
What is it that make[s] the PT Cruiser a reptilian car? First, the car has a strong identity. What people told us is that “We’re tired of these cars that have no identity. I have good quality, good gas mileage, good everything else, but when I see the car from a distance, I have to wait till the car gets close to know what it is, and I have to read the name.” When you go to see your mother, she doesn’t need to read your name to know who you are, you see? We want this reptilian connection. And so this notion of identity, absolutely key, was very reptilian for a car.
My actual favorite description of this is from an NY Times article on the doctor:
Missing from the driveway on this particular autumn morning are Dr. Rapaille’s PT Cruiser, the model he helped Chrysler design, with a masculine exterior fit for Al Capone and a feminine interior to satisfy any mom.
Here’s a very recent video of Dr. Rapaille talking about Artificial Intelligence:
Of course, the good doctor is not a designer. The actual creation of the car can be credited to Bryan Nesbitt, who worked with Lutz and Rapaille to make the car.
There were three concept cars that preceded the production vehicle, all called Pronto. There was the more European and modern Plymouth Pronto. A mid-engined dead end called the Pronto Spyder. And, finally, a radical, Foose-ian extravagance called the Pronto Cruiser Concept.
That last car, ultimately, is what became the PT Cruiser, and it was destined to became a hit. Just not a hit in the way anyone expected.
What Is A PT Cruiser
With Plymouth dead, the PT Cruiser became the Chrysler PT Cruiser. I don’t know that I’d call the PT Cruiser a bad car, but it’s far from a good car. While not actually a Dodge Neon, like most Chryslers, the front-engined, front-wheel drive car shared a few parts with its bubbly economy stablemate. International markets also got the Neon’s 2.0-liter naturally aspirated fourbanger. In the United States, however, we were treated to a 2.4-liter four-cylinder with a whopping 150 horsepower, with an optional five-speed manual.
A PT Cruiser is immediately identifiable by its massive, pontooning fenders and aggressively scowling headlights. The car looks like James Cagney screaming “I made it ma! Top of the world!” in gangster flick “White Heat.” It’s a ridiculous vehicle. You can’t even call it a car because Chrysler tried to pass it off as a truck to skirt fuel economy standards.
What differentiated the PT Cruiser and Neon was not performance or technology, but 300 pounds of vintage style in a 10-pound bag. Here’s how Tony Swan of Car And Driver described it back in the June 2000 issue:
Still, stir as you might, you’re in no danger of rocket-sled face distortion when you mash the pedal to the floor. In this sense, the Cruiser’s hot-rod look is out of step with performance reality. Chrysler insiders say there’s likely to be a turbo option in the Cruiser’s not-too-distant future. But for now the emphasis is on cruisin’ and lookin’ cool.
On the other hand, the Cruiser is surprisingly adept on snaky sections of back roads. Body roll is well-controlled, particularly in view of the relatively high center of gravity; the power rack-and-pinion steering is nicely weighted, with better-than-average road feel; and the damping rates are well-selected for keeping the tires in contact with the surface, even on sections of washboard gravel road.
I like to think Swan absolutely dumped this beast on the rickety gravel farm roads on the outskirts of Ann Arbor back in 2000. Eventually, the PT Cruiser would get a Michael Scott-approved convertible and an actually quick turbo version with the 230 horsepower motor shared with the SRT4 Neon.
Why Millennials Don’t Always Love This Car
I was 17 when this car came out, which makes me an Elder Millennial. While I didn’t hate the way it looked, it immediately felt old to me. It’s the “mom jeans” effect. While I get how high-waisted denim works well with certain body types, the preponderance of the look among actual moms I grew up with has changed the context with which I view the look.
When the car debuted it was not young people who flocked to the PT Cruiser in great numbers. It was actual people above the age of 40!
I found an old press release from PT Cruiser that actually included the demographics, and check out the median age:
Gender: 46 percent male/54 percent female
Median Age: 51
Median Annual Household Income: $58,000
Education: 18 percent college educated
Household: 70 percent married
So, your typical PT Cruiser owner was a bank teller in their 50s. That’s how I remember it. It’s not like I dislike the cars, it just means something else to me.
Why Young People Seem To Like The Car
This article has been sneaking up on me for a while. I think it started when Jason mentioned that his son Otto wanted a PT Cruiser as his first car. His dad’s a weirdo, and a car nerd, so that sort of tracks. Then I started noticing the PT Cruiser more on Instagram and, yeah, even TikTok. There’s a young woman on the platform that’s documented her life with the car. Also, they seem to be really popular in Japan:
And whatever this is.
Just today, local weekend boy Rob Spiteri brought up that his 12-year-old sister told a group of friends that “Everybody should drive a PT Cruiser Convertible.”
My assumption is this is somewhat ironic, in the same way that clamshell iBooks and other Y2K aesthetic signifiers have suddenly rocketed back into our lives. I reached out to Syd, from OHOAT, as both a certified young person and also an individual with a good read on weird culture.
“I think it’s satire, but also they genuinely like it,” Syd told me, before adding “Which is weird, because the cars are absolute pieces of shit.”
LOL.
Our own Mercedes Streeter had a similar line.
“I cannot explain why other people like the PT Cruiser, but I love them (and the HHR) because in my eye, it showed a time when Chrysler and Chevrolet weren’t so boring.” Indeed, say what you will about the PT Cruiser (or GM’s clone, the Chevy HHR), They are not boring.
Thomas Hundal followed suit.
“Young people are enjoying PT Cruisers as a semi-ironic fashion statement,” he said in Slack. “The 20-year cycle means the early aughts are where nostalgia’s at right now…. except for that one year where everyone got weirdly into chants. Juicy Couture, Von Dutch, wired headphones, early iPods, CDs, compact digital cameras, all of that’s now fashionable again.”
Well, now I have to:
So, there you go. Semi-ironic appreciation that becomes regular appreciation. I was into swing music when I was 15, so I am not going to judge.
My wife described the PT Cruiser as a “minivan on Diamox” in 2001. I never thought of them as good cars but they made the roads more interesting. I found the Scion xB more interesting but spent the decade driving cheap beaters and avoiding car payments. I still see the occasional survivor and expect them to appear at car shows any day now since I saw a BMW E30 at a show last year. I guess I’m getting old when something I think of as a normal car is over thirty years old and polished up next to a muscle car.
As a coda I saw a PT Cruiser GT in nice condition last night parked next to a Chevy HHR taxi cab
Always felt Chrysler missed some good nomenclature by not calling the turbo model the GT Cruiser instead.
Again? Uh, no, they were never cool, and are still not.
But are they really pieces of shit? I still see them around frequently, while other cars have disappeared into the ether.
Saturns as well. Still the official car of barely-making-it single mothers around here.
I’ve always liked the 3-door models, though. That era of GM design brings good memories.
No, because the real measure of a good car is whether someone is willing to keep maintaining it. Nobody who bought a PT Cruiser new was the type of person not to maintain it, they bought it because they loved the design of it. See also: Corvette owners. There are plenty of PT Cruisers still around because the generation that bought them new cared enough to take good care of them. And thanks to them, Gen Z has a chance to give those cars a second wind of appreciation. One of the few things Boomers did that actually benefits us now…
Could it be that the “boomers” were the Gen Z’s Grandparents and since Gen Z rarely pays for anything themselves they are getting them handed down to them in hopes the Gen Z kids will actually learn to drive and the Gen X parents will finally be free of them?
When you say “Gen Z rarely pays for anything themselves” … are you pointing out that younger people tend to have less money that older people? Or just making a sweeping statement based on nothing but intergenerational disdain?
Nope… they’re not. They’re pretty decent cars… particularly with the manual. Is there room for improvement in some areas? Yes.
But they are objectively decent cars in my experience.
“…local weekend boy Rob Spiteri” for the win!
like most of the 90’s things kids these days have nostalgia love for, they will figure out that living with the actual product of the 90’s isn’t that great. The PT cruiser is a Motorola StarTAC when you actually want a RAZR.
I say this as someone who dailies a ’97. Trust me when I say that the 90’s looked cooler than they are to live with.
By the way they keep talking about a reptilian car, sounds like a great car for lizard people.
Okay but hear me out for a second: it isn’t
Cool is the rule, but sometimes bad is bad.
Is this your way of telling us that Huey Lewis predicted the tall small wagon market 20 years before it happened, and what you really want is the Hip to be Square xB (and to a lesser extent, the Kia Soul)?
THANK YOU. I’ve long maintained the belief that PT Cruisers were never terrible.
Like o said before cars are neither cool or uncool until a certain demo becomes the primary buyer. If that demo is cool the car becomes cool, if that demo is old, old persons car. I mean look GM gave some of the very 1st Corvettes to our Astronauts. The baddest most admired men on the planet. Astronauts are what are left when jet test pilots wash out. A mini van in appearance is not much different than a boring sedan. But who drives them? Young parents, people who have stopped living life and started creating life. Look at the new Beetle. Small cute a little vase in the dashboard. Chick car.
Beetles are gone, they were part of the NEO retro movement and had their time in the sun. surprised the mini is still around to be honest.
No, it’s not cool again.
I, too, am an elder millennial, and there is a possibility that my memory isn’t completely accurate, but here’s what I remember:
A few years before the PT Cruiser came out, the Chrysler corporation knocked everybody’s socks off by showing off the bonkers Plymouth Prowler concept car and then proceeding to put into production something that looked damn near identical to the concept version.
Somehow my dad managed to get himself added to a preview list for the Cruiser in advance of its release. Every so often, he’d receive little promotional items in the mail related to the car. Often these were teaser images of the concept car or other simple things, but I still have one of those little credit card sized things with Swiss Army Knife style tools (meant to symbolize the car’s versatility) with PT Cruiser branding.
I was excited! The company was on a roll! I loved (and still love) the Prowler… and just before that came the amazing Dodge Viper. What might Chrysler have in store next? And it’s supposed to be practical, so it would wind up in more driveways. I hoped that it might be something I’d actually get to see — or even drive! That was a bit of a “monkey’s paw” wish…
Then they rolled it out. Ew. That’s it? It looks so goofy. What a disappointment!
I drove one only once, and it was a horrible experience. One of my coworkers selected it as a rental car during a business trip because it “looked bigger” than the full-size car he’d reserved. As the low ranking employee, I was often enlisted as the designated driver on that trip, so I had the “honor” of operating its underpowered 4-cylinder powerplant while my colleagues squeezed in shoulder-to-shoulder, holding their briefcases on their laps because the cargo area wasn’t as big as it seemed.
But is it cool? I don’t know. I’m no authority on “cool” and likely never will be. I suppose I believe that some people find it cool simply because other people dislike it. That’s ok by me. They can buy up all the Cruisers because I sure as hell don’t want them.
Look on the bright side as the driver you most certainly had the most room. One for the lower class.
I guess you had to be there when they came out. It was basically the height of NEO-Retro Designs. SSR, Prowler, T-Bird, Mustang….even Names from the past were making a come back, Ford 500, Sable, 300, Silverado and so on…. The PT cruiser was a basic daily driver that looked close enough to a 40’s Dodge for the people with money at the time to clamor for them. They were the Ford Maverick of today back then. They were cheap, and the right style for the time. HHR actually happened just to compete since the demand was high.
I had a purple rental one in San Francisco once(i felt a little self-conscious in it though). it was nothing better or worse than the myriad other small cars they had to offer. the access tot he back was nice as no wagons were optional to rent and I was picking up Press Brake tools.
“Designed by Bryan Nesbitt”. Didn’t he also manage “Flight of The Conchords”, New Zealand’s 4th most famous folk rock comedy duo? This could certainly explain a lot.
With stick-on “wood” side panels, they are the haute retro.
Revell did 1/25 scale snap-together model kits (basically unassembled promos) of both the wagon and convertible. No full engine detail, sadly, so no getting an early start on very tight timing-belt changes.
Nickelback: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance?”
I recently heard someone much smarter and cooler than me refer to the “Nickelback effect.” Which is where something becomes very popular in the mainstream, and people online start shitting on it, and suddenly that once-popular thing is now the antithesis of cool.
I still hate Nickelback but now I’m wondering if I’m just brainwashed …
No, Nickelback is just not good.
I had a PT GT with the turbo and the Getrag manual. It was a fun car. Legitimately quick, quality was decent, hauled a lot of stuff. I would have it again before a lot of other cars.
I have never been an authority on cool, but a GT with a manual absolutely changed my opinion of the car. Not mine, so I didn’t wring it out, but it was fun and fairly crisp.
Years ago I had an 06 GT 5spd and I did my best to make it a legitimately cool looking car. I miss it a lot. So fun to drive and it was actually a practical car.
https://i.imgur.com/VTEMM4y.jpg
When you stick a Hellcat engine in it, then it will be halfway cool.
Counterpoint: No, its the children who are wrong.
Counter-coutnerpoint: This has always been the case, with every generation in history. Boomers complained that the darn Gen-Xers and Millenials bought “Jap-crap” instead of good ol’ American cars. But the boomers weren’t the cool generation then, so why would Gen-Xers and Millenials care what they think of their Japanese cars?
Gen Z at the moment thinks the PT Cruiser is cool, we are well aware that prior generations do not, and we are perfectly fine with that. In fact, we think it’s funny that we like a car everyone else hates. If anything, that makes us like it more.
You know, at first I didn’t like your comment, but after reading it again, there’s a lot of truth in it. This it IS the case with every generation. While it stereotypes folks, the core message is correct.
Look, I never thought I would be a dad to teens, but once I was, I went from the cool dad to, “oh dad, you’re embarrassing me.” My generation is no different, I liked very little that my parents did once I got into double digits.
“we are well aware that prior generations do not, and we are perfectly fine with that. In fact, we think it’s funny that we like a car everyone else hates. If anything, that makes us like it more.”
As owner of 2 Roadmaster Wagons, a Lesabre, and 4 Saturns, I agree with this perspective. It’s humorous owning a car that the rest of the world fails to appreciate. Especially when the cars are (secretly) decent rides. Sometimes it’s just an artificial stigma that keeps a car out of the mainstream.
Ugh – the PT Loser. No, thanks.
that’s funny coming from someone advocating a Fiat Barf.
Why do I love cars and motorcycles with names so easy to mock? Guess I’ll go back to looking at a Buell B-last. lol
I was this close || to buying a B-last a few months ago. Still wish I had picked it up. 🙂
When PT Cruisers were new I had one as a rental car. It was pretty tragic – slow, noisy, rattly, and it had only a few thousand miles on it – so that’s the basis of my opinion.
PT Bruiser
Matt, you and I are about the same age. I just turned 41. I think for the majority of us elder millennials (if I do not speak for you, please feel free to chime in) the PT Cruiser can never be cool because we were old enough when it came out to remember it. And if it wasn’t cool to us then, time certainly isn’t going to help it. Maybe another 20 years from now, I’ll freak out when I see a pristine one at a show, kind of the way I can see *insert random not enthusiast car of its time from 1980s or early 1990s here* now and appreciate it as a survivor.
We are basically in the same boat here. It’s hard to find it cool, though it’s amusing to me that the people that were as old as we were when it came out find it interesting.
Idk, I’m 38 and I always thought the PT got a bad rap.
I’ll always give some props to an automaker that tries something unique
36 here. Turbo/Stick? Cool! It’s an SRT-4. Base model? Meh.
46 here. It was never cool.
Remember so many boring uninspired cars plus due to Global Cooling and the next ice age approaching government regulations banned dancing in the entire town. So nothing could have performance but the PT, HHR, and the Prowler at least looked fast. Sure the Viper but allowed due to low production levels. What did Ford or Chevy have for a daily? Really i cant remember.
I was around when the Nissan 200SX was new, I still don’t agree that was or ever will be a cool car either.
I’ll be 40 next week so I’m also a geezer millennial. I am in the minority in that I thought the PT Cruiser was cool when it came out. I really liked the styling at the time and considered buying one (I bought a Civic instead). I also liked the other retro styled cars of the era (particularly the Thunderbird, SSR, and 2010s Beetle). After a few years the novelty of these vehicles wore off, but I still have an appreciation for them (I am glad I bought the Civic, though; that was a great car).
For me, these cars are too new to be cool again. I regularly see PT Cruisers and HHRs on the roads, so at the moment they are just generic used vehicles. I’m starting to appreciate well-kept unremarkable 90s cars, so in another 10 years ago I will probably start to think the PT Cruiser is cool again.
I’m disappointed to hear the youths like these things, though. I’m not sure why. Although, it is good to hear the youths still have some interest in cars.
I’m 32 but got into cars at a very young age, around the time when PT Cruisers were everywhere. They have never been cool to me and never will be. Frankly I think about 90% of the retro modernism of the late 90s/early 2000s has aged like milk. Really the only exceptions I can think of are the BMW Z8 and the Challenger. I think pretty much all of the rest is lazy as hell, particularly the American takes on it.
Yeah, no. Still not cool.
Sorry Fireball you got to be cool to say not cool.
Still uncomfortable, buzzy and with questionable build quality. No thanks!