Chrysler Will Drop Dodge Stealth After 1996

Chrysler Corp. plans to discontinue its flashy but slow-selling Dodge Stealth after the 1996 model year, further distancing itself from the car’s Japanese manufacturer.

The decision, confirmed by a Chrysler spokesman Monday, was blamed on slow sales of the high-performance luxury car, along with a feeling among Chrysler executives that Dodge no longer needed the image boost the Mitsubishi-built Stealth brought it in 1990.

“We basically feel we can produce products within the Chrysler system that fill the lineup out and fit the Dodge brand mentality without producing the Stealth,” said Chrysler spokesman Mike Rosenau.

Chrysler began selling Mitsubishi Motor Corp. cars in 1970 but turned to the Japanese automaker heavily in the mid-1980s to help freshen its aging and staid model lineup with several small, sporty cars and pickups.

Its dependence on Mitsubishi has steadily diminished as Chrysler has updated and expanded its product line.

Stealth popularity peaked in its first full year of production, 1991, with 18,352 units. Last year just 7,090 were produced, and through August of this year only 3,077 were sold.

Fewer Stealths are expected to be sold in 1996, then it will be dropped.

“The yen has dictated that,” Rosenau said, noting the rising value of the Japanese currency also has diminished sales of other Japanese-made sports cars by making them more expensive to buy with dollars.

Prices for the car, a sibling of the Mitsubishi 3000GT, start near $24,000 for a base model and rise into the low $40,000 range for the twinturbocharged, all-wheel-drive RT version.

Dodge’s need for the Stealth as a nameplate image-maker was diminished with the 1992 introduction of its exotic muscle car, the Viper.

“Viper is our brand icon,” Dodge general manager Martin Levine told the industry trade publication Automotive News, which first reported the Stealth decision in its Monday edition. “Viper is desperately needed, even if it just sits on the lots.”

When the Stealth is gone, the only vehicle the No. 3 automaker will import from Japan will be the Eagle Summit, a compact family wagon.

Chrysler’s relationship with Mitsubishi Motor, a unit of Mitsubishi Corp., became quite strong in the 1980s. In 1985, Chrysler imported more than twice as many Mitsubishi-made cars and trucks from Japan as Mitsubishi did.

Also that year, Chrysler began a joint manufacturing venture with Mitsubishi, which opened a plant three years later in Normal, Ill. Chrysler sold its 50 percent share in the plant to Mitsubishi in late 1991, though a few Chrysler models are still produced there.

Despite cancellation of the Stealth, Chrysler spokesman Jeff Leestma said his company’s relationship with Mitsubishi remains strong.

“Stealth aside, we still collaborate with Mitsubishi on a variety of projects,” he said.