You know what we could all use right now? Some freaking whimsy. It might seem to be in short supply these days, but if you know where to look, you just might find it. Take the Dodge Caliber, for example. It wasn’t a particularly whimsical car outside of some unusual features, but one facet of Dodge’s throw-everything-at-the-wall marketing strategy was oddly delightful, so long as you don’t fear mosquitoes.
For the 2007 model year, Dodge replaced its long-running Neon nameplate with a chunky hatchback called the Caliber, signifying the exact moment the last remnant of American mainstream 1990s optimism was taken behind the woodshed and unceremoniously Boondock Saints’d. In the eyes of Dodge, “Hi” was out, edgy was in, and the Caliber was meant to appeal to the youth by not playing nice.
Print ads from the time depicted the Dodge Caliber getting a tattoo, breaking into a bumper car track, and, um, photocopying its asscheeks. Does a hatchback version of a Jeep Compass with a Jatco CVT even have asscheeks? Moving on, one television ad from the period depicted a dog riding in a Caliber while mooning another dog and — who the hell directed this campaign anyway? Bart Simpson?
Of course, this relentless marketing barrage didn’t stop at traditional mediums because of something called Adobe Shockwave. See, in-browser games were huge in the 2000s, and Shockwave was a popular way of building them. Obviously, since nothing’s sacred, this space was prime for advertising, and Dodge’s marketers decided to pop off with something truly unhinged.
Among a series of online games promoting various Dodge products sat something called Caliber Buzz, which let you fly a computer-generated mosquito around a computer-generated Dodge Caliber interior. I’m not joking. It even comes with a waiver that kicks off with “No bugs were injured in the making of this game! The stunts and maneuvers simulated by the mosquito in this game should never be attempted in real life — almost all are impossible and all are dangerous — for mosquitoes. Don’t try this at home.”
Alrighty, then. Let’s kick things off in explore mode, where your blood-sucking avatar is free to roam the cabin of the Caliber. The spacebar adds height, the arrow keys control direction of movement, and the first thing you’ll want to do is spend 30 seconds or so trying to fly through the hole in the headrest. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to buzz about the rest of the interior, where giant arrows and text point out features like the swing-out liftgate speakers and detachable flashlight. See? I told you this is a marketing exercise.
Once you’re bored of aimless flight, you might want to try the actual game mode, which involves flying through gold hoops and collecting Dodge emblems within a time limit. I have no idea how scores are tabulated since I scored nearly 25,000 points on my first attempt, but hey, why not juice the numbers to make the player feel good? The overarching narrative here is “buy our product” not “aspire to become a mosquito.”
That’s all well and good, but how do you actually play this game in 2025, when no browsers come with Flash support? Well, a variety of free emulators exist, with Flashpoint being both at the forefront and a program that doesn’t piggyback onto your browser. So, if you’re feeling particularly bored, why not fly a computer-generated mosquito inside a Dodge Caliber? It’s kinda fun, it’s fairly easy, and it’s free so long as you have a shitty Windows computer and an internet connection.
(Lead photo credit: Dodge)
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I’m aging myself, but when I got my 1990 Thunderbird SC, it has a very simple driving simulator on floppy disk.
Ahh here we go:
https://www.thedrive.com/news/29908/this-1989-ford-simulator-ii-floppy-disk-lets-you-preview-1990-ford-mercury-lincoln-cars
Darn. I was hoping to livestream this. /sarcasm
It would seem this didn’t generate the amount of buzz they were looking for.
Working for a parts store in 2010ish, i can’t tell you how many times i got asked for parts for a Dodge Caliper
Caliber: It’s a Bore!
I wish I could track down a working copy of the Honda Element “Element and Friends” game where you drove around a big map and talked to the various animals from the commercials of the same name.
I would peep Project Flashpoint. They’ve archived almost every online game/animation/etc regardless of how obscure it is.
Holden used to have one for their Ute you could play in Flash for a while. I can’t find it anywhere there. You could just drive it around on screen and do burnouts and what not.
I got to experience a rental Caliber for a few weeks after a timing belt idler failed in my Legacy GT.
It…was not great. The morbid black interior was so cheap that the plastic trim on the steering wheel cut my hand. It was slow and really ugly, the CVT awful, and it somehow got worse fuel economy than my 180k mile AWD Subaru.
The only good things I can say is that it worked for the duration of my rental period, I did like the metallic orange paint, and the recliner we needed to transport to the thrift store fit in the back.
I also had a metallic orange Caliber rental. I think i am still having some back issues some 10 years later. That driver seat punished me.
Man, I miss the tame early/mid 00s internet. Flash games, hate hadn’t fully engulfed every corner of the web, and overall it felt like an event to get to a computer to access since phones couldn’t yet.
As a side story, I remember one of my co ops where we built the 5 speed transmission for the Caliber. Got to drive the mule car a bunch, with all the camouflage even, before its release. I’m not sure the interior improved much from that pre-production model.
This it. I’m setting the time machine to early 2006 to be safe. If this message continues to exist I failed.
Damn predestination paradox. Thanks anyway for trying
Chachi will be his own mother and father?
Maybe if we let them learn their way around the interior with a video game they won’t pay as much attention to how crappy it is when they actually sit in it.
I miss all of the mid 00’s games and quirks from car websites.
Let me review a couple that live rent free in my head:
1) Hummer. They had the best configurator in the game, with parts that flew on to the trucks as you configured them. They also had an awesome part of the site to watch some quirky ads.
2) Mini. They also had an excellent configurator and a video game that was kind of like a slot car track. Pretty neat!
3) Daimler Chrysler sites. Most had some games. I remember the Dodge Charger game where you had to race better Chargers to win. They also had a Dodge Neon game where you avoided crap flying into the street. Jeep also had some awesome games, if I remember correctly.
Jeep did one for the Liberty with the big fabric roof, tied into that commercial with all the animals singing Neil Diamond. I remembered it as you use the Liberty to catch stuff, but it looks like you’re a squirrel jumping acorns, and just fall into the Liberty if you fail.
https://shaunstrack.com/jeep-boostin'-nuts
Also, I absolutely had downloaded one for the 2004 Durango, where you’re supposed to drive it around a big property and use it to tow stuff to build a giant garage or something, but it kept crashing, and I never managed to finish it.
the game or the durango?
They also came with a fully digital owners manual, that operated a bit like a computer game. What’s funny is I’ve never liked the Caliber. As a new car it wasn’t a great deal given what you got. But when my father in law needed a car for $6k or less to replace his dying Volvo, it turned out to be the best option I could find.
My husband, his mom (my father in laws ex wife) and I all chipped in some money to surprise him with a car. He is a disabled veteran living in a retirement home, with almost no money left to his name after his stroke and a bad divorce with his second wife. He was driving a $200 Volvo S40 (T5!) that was so trashed I don’t think it would have even been good for parts. Anything would have been better. And I know someone is saying “just buy him a Corolla!” Have you seen what a $6k Corolla looks like? Every one looked rough and had at least 150k miles on it.
Then we saw the Caliber. A 2011, with only 80k miles. The interior was mint. The exterior was too, save for one scuff. It had four brand new Goodyear tires. The ride height was perfect for someone with limited mobility to slide right in and out. And this part is subjective, but I wanted him to have something that looked nice and wasn’t worn out. I can’t emphasize how mint the Caliber was. Someone clearly took good care of it.
We did the whole surprise thing, complete with a big red bow on the hood. He loves it! And honestly, it didn’t drive as bad as I thought it would. It was just An Car. For the 2k miles of around town driving my FIL does a year, it’s perfect. Fortunately we were spared the truly awful interior from earlier model years as well.
So yeah, that’s how I learned to respect one of my least favorite cars, and how a used one ended up being the perfect car for someone.
This is reminiscent of the Dodge Journey story from a few months ago. It’s amazing how some car’s sins can be forgiven when they get cheap-cheap.
Okay, I played the game. How many Neopoints have I earned?
I can take the hate. I actually liked the Caliber’s styling and actually wanted one at the time.
SAMEEEE. The swing out speakers and chilled glove box were so dope back in the day.
I did too. I actually owned one. It wasn’t a good car, but it wasn’t bad looking.
I liked these cars at the time as well. I knew a guy who had the SRT-4 model, and it was a riot to drive! Made me consider actually buying one after driving his. Went with a STi instead, but I still love seeing the occasional Caliber SRT on the road.
Other than it being an annoying bug and therefore less cute, the only reason I can think of choosing a mosquito is they were borrowing from Mister Mosquito.
They could probably make a new version for smartphones and tablets today. Just instead of inside the car, it could be exploring unsold models on a dealer lot…call it “Hornet’s Nest?“
The Caliber was a weird combination of trying way too hard while also trying nowhere near hard enough. Dodge’s marketing strategy looked like something cooked up at 3:00am by a bunch of men who had replaced sleep with cocaine. The actual vehicle was a shameless phone in job that showed nothing but indifference from design to assembled product.
To my eyes, it was one of those rare vehicles that had no visually pleasing angles. Maybe it looked good from above?
The vilification of cute was a major blow to US automotive design.
yes. To be quickly followed by angry-faced everything.
I greatly preferred the happy styling over our current race to see who can make a front end that looks the most like someone screaming at a barista for accidentally using 2% instead of skim.
I used to sell Chrysler/Dodge. We had a sales trainer come in – full on “alpha” guy. The tag line was pretty much that every non Dodge car on the road was “gay” or “soft” the line I recall was. When that pussy little Camry Driver sees your CrossHair grill in his rear view.. oh they will move over to let you pass.
“You know what the kids like these days? To be a mini-version of everything their parents are, including a mini-version of the Durango”
Sounds right for a focus group.
Worst rental I’ve ever had, felt like it was powered by hamsters.
Hamsters that would chew your face off if you dared to call them cute.
Powered by hamsters? Are you sure it wasn’t a first-gen Kia Soul?
And an interior that felt like it was made from the plastic of the hamster’s cage. Easily the worst rental I’ve ever had, and quite possibly the worst car I’ve ever driven. I assumed every one of them was bought sight unseen, because I can’t imagine the person that gets into this thing and says “I’ll take it!”
The Dodge Caliber walked so the Subaru Crosstrek could run.
True, walking was its top speed
Except for the completely batshit SRT4
IIRC: the torque steer of that car was unparalleled.
That sounds like strapping a jet engine onto a shopping cart
I mean it’s not far off
Wanna see a weirder game?
This was on the German site for the New Beetle:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/10833/new-beetle-tracks-and-gaps/
VW sprung for an entire N64 game as well.
Beetle Adventure Racing is actually legit good. Loved that game when it came out.
Torch certainly must know about this!
Wasn’t there one for the Toyota Echo as well? Or some Toyota. I forget. It also ran in Shockwave 3D.
This is the only vehicle I remember actively disliking from the moment it came out. The Nitro was also pretty close, but I’ve softened on that one over time.
Every single thing about the Caliber launch was a posterchild effort in “trying too hard.” Plus it also normalized calling small cars “SUVs” which is a stupid trend that continues today.
The PT Cruiser started the trend, by being a tall hatchback on the Neon platform that was somehow a “light truck”, in a way, the Caliber was more of a second generation PT Cruiser than it was a true Neon replacement. Only built even shittier with even shittier materials, because full Daimler was in effect
There was so much weirdness involved in the Caliber launch, they had David Spade and the surrealist lip syncing Russian clowns from Slava’s Snowshow do the product introduction in Detroit, and then there was that TV launch ad with the Disneyeque fairy flying around turning skyscrapers into candy sculptures, only to get frustrated when the Caliber is too tough for her magic to work on it
I remember that fairy ad like it was yesterday.
Looks better built than an actual Caliber