(first posted 8/7/2016) In the summer of 2001 when TIP’s brother-in-law died suddenly while on vacation in Spain, I knew she was terribly upset.
At JFK airport she kissed Will goodbye but said nothing to me. She was supposed to be gone for 3 or 4 days; she was gone for three weeks.
Things had calmed down at work after the Y2K panic and we had retained most of the extra staff from that effort to help the NYC DOC implement PC software upgrades throughout the city, so while the DOC project staff had increased, I had great people in the field and two or three days a week I worked from home.
In those hectic times I had forgotten we had ordered a car from the nearby Jeep/Chrysler dealer.
About a week after TIP had left, I got a call and a pleasant voice told me my new car had come in. I was caught off guard for a few seconds.
“New car? Oh, yes, of course. No, you have the right number. I didn’t forget; just a little busy here.”
It was a very hot summer in 2001 and when Will and I drove the Eagle Vision TSi to the dealer to trade it in, the overhead thermometer read 102 degrees.
The dealer had stored the just washed new car in an unused firehouse across the street from the showroom along with three Prowlers.
We had ordered a 2002 PT Cruiser Touring Edition in the color Taupe Frost Metallic with a 5 speed manual, roof rack, and, well, and that was about it for options. It was fully equipped and bore no resemblance to the cars of the 1950s and 1960s where not checking boxes on the order sheet resulted in a real stripper.
When we had ordered it I was still a bit shaken from the “incident” on Route 80 in the Eagle on cruise control when I had passed out after laboring in 103 degree sun helping to unload a tractor trailer full of Cat5 cables.
This new car did not have cruise control.
Besides, in my mind I thought cruise control and manual shift cars should be mutually exclusive. That’s not necessarily valid, but leaving out cruise control seemed like a good idea at the time.
I know the general population does not like PT Cruisers, and even some of you at CC have had bad experiences in your family with these cars. But I can honestly say this is the best Chrysler I have ever owned.
OK, admittedly, not a high bar, especially since I only owned two other Mopars. So far.
Let me re-phase that. Taking into consideration the holy grail of wonderfulness that was the 1982 Honda Accord, this is the [second] best car I have ever owned. It handled well, was comfortable, roomy, very versatile, reliable, quite quick with the 5 speed, and loafed along at throughway speeds in its long legged overdrive 5th gear.
The a/c worked perfectly for all of the 13 years I owned it. So did just about everything else.
When people asked me how I liked it, my standard answer was “It’s much better than expected.”
And the radio never got stuck on any CD, let alone the best of ZZ Top. Looking at the above photo I am reminded of Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, my almost namesake. A great rock vocalist.
He’s 4 years younger than I, but he looks like hell (at least he did six years ago in 2010 shown above). I guess all those road shows are hard on the body.
The Cruiser wasn’t perfect, but neither was the holy grail Honda. The Cruiser got so-so mileage and when it was started on cold mornings (and it always started), the engine sounded like Soviet era farm tractor.
But after a few minutes it calmed down and sounded like any other non-Russian tractor.
The battery is under the air intake box at the right of the above photo and remote battery jumper locations are provided. The recommended negative ground connection is to the right of the hood latch (see the yellow label pointing to the ground bolt?). The red marked positive connection is not visible in this picture.
With the rear seats out, it has about 63 cubic feet of space.
Some specifications: The engine is a cast iron block, aluminum head DOHC with 4 valves per cylinder, and develops 150 hp at 5,600 rpm and 162 lb. ft. of torque at 4,000. The car weighs about 3,112 pounds, is 169 inches long, and 63 inches high. The suspension is MacPherson strut, coil spring, anti-roll bar in front and twist beam, coil spring, and anti-roll bar in the rear.
Internet sources say the Cruiser can do 0-60 in 9.0 seconds and get 25 mpg in the city and 32 on the highway.
I disagree with the data of the prior paragraph. I never got better than 28 mpg on the highway and city stop-and-go yielded a lot less that 25, probably 20 or 21 mpg tops. And that 9.0 second 0-60 figure doesn’t seem right either. I’d say it was easily as fast as my current 1999 Miata, say 8.5 seconds, perhaps even a little better. These are estimates of course, but I owned the car up to mid-2013, so I do not think the rose colored glasses syndrome has set in yet.
Pulling onto fast moving highway entrance ramps in third never made me wish for more power. It was fun to drive and felt very planted on curves and entrance ramps.
The tach and speedometer were parallel in third gear in the Cruiser. In the Miata, parallel is in fifth gear.
Looking at the above mpg and acceleration paragraphs, perhaps the less than spectacular mileage and the faster than estimated 0-60 times had something to do with each other.
The car had a normal, if a bit rough life, doing mostly local stop and go driving and sometimes carrying loads of tree debris and cut logs from two hurricanes (Irene and Sandy) to the landfill that were so heavy I ended up damaging both rear shocks and had to replace them.
The Cruiser was legally titled as a small truck, but it was best not let the large yawning cargo space make one think it had a heavy cargo carrying capacity. Maximum payload was 865 pounds, and that included everything in it, including the driver.
Wood logs can be very heavy. This was a small tall car, not a truck.
As expected, the cue ball topped shift lever was not nearly as direct as the Miata and it was a bit longer, but it was always easy to find the right forward gear and the throws were solid and acceptable for a front wheel drive unit.
Reverse had a trick to it. Sometimes, it would feel like it was in reverse when in fact it was “near” reverse, and letting up the clutch when it was “near” reverse would result in grinding. I learned to feel or sense the difference and that became one of the car’s “endearing qualities” to me, and one of many reasons why I was reluctant to let others drive it.
The driver’s seat had power up and down. I liked that.
TIP drove it once in a while and found it handy when going to the nursery and buying shrubs, small trees, and other greenery for me to plant on the rolling grounds of the marital abode.
The Car Talk brothers reviewed the PT Cruiser on their web site and I remember they said that while some cars are “chick” magnets, the PT Cruiser was a “Chuck” magnet. Tom and Ray said that it was men, mostly old men, who found the PT Cruiser interesting. The older the men, they said, the greater their interest. That may explain my fondness for the car.
There was a rattle coming from the rear when backing off the gas in first or second gear, but a look under the car when I was having the oil changed, and some bending of the exhaust/Cat heat shield, and that was the end of the rattle.
Once, after having the timing belt changed, the door locks started going berserk locking and unlocking at will, sometimes rapidly like a machine gun; sometimes once in a while. I pulled the relevant fuse and drove it like that for a month or so, and then put the fuse back in to see what would happen. The locks worked fine from that point forward.
Paul wrote up the PT Cruiser and a Plymouth Reliant here.
When Will and I picked up TIP at Newark Airport almost three weeks after she had left, she seemed quiet and troubled. She hardly noticed that we were picking her up in a car that we had not owned when she left.
A week later we went to a neighbor’s home for an end of summer labor day picnic on September 3, and things started to feel a bit less tense. We joked with our neighbors and Will ran around with the rest of the neighborhood kids with water pistols and in the glow of the setting sun, good friends, and lots of food and drink, it almost seemed too good to be true and too good to last.
One week later, I had my normal Monday morning status meeting with the DOC at 60 Hudson Street.
The next day was September 11, 2001.
Basking Ridge lost 19 residents in the 9/11 attacks, three of which we knew personally, and one of those, a young Irish bond trader, was joking with TIP and me at that sunny labor day picnic a week earlier.
If you are my age (I was born in 1944) you know where you were and what you were doing when you heard that President Kennedy had been shot. The same can probably be said about the death of Martin Luther King Junior and two months later of Robert F Kennedy.
Well younger, more innocent people of the globe, welcome to the world of your elders, only worse.
Michael Nacht, professor of public policy at UC Berkeley stated that “Even more than Pearl Harbor or the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the 9/11 attacks stand alone as a seminal moment in the modern history of the United States, one that exerted the most profound effects on the politics, policies and psychology of America and its citizens.” Professor Nacht continues “ … the most fundamental impact of 9/11 is the sense of permanent vulnerability that haunts residents of Main Street and Pennsylvania Avenue alike.” For more on this, go here.
I was sitting at my desk with Will’s dog Sara on my lap developing meeting minutes and team work plans on a laptop off-line when I got the call from my DOC manager. “Robert, we have to vacate 60 Hudson immediately, please monitor the systems from there, tell the Rikers team and your DOC escorts to return to the MIS Trailer and await further orders. Gotta go”.
I hadn’t said a word, except maybe “OK”, but I could taste bile in my mouth. I put the dog on the floor, went into the den, turned on the TV, and sank to the floor.
The mayor’s office had their emergency command center on the 23rd floor of 7 WTC and it had to be abandoned shortly after the attack. The call went out to NYPD and NYC DOC for emergency telephone service to be restored to a nearby temporary work site because the local West Street Verizon switching center was badly damaged by the complete collapse of 7 WTC and flooding from broken water mains. A second switching center on Broad Street had no power.
Cell phone service demand quickly overwhelmed most provider’s bandwidth capacity resulting in few cell calls getting through.
Note 1: The NYC emergency command center at 7 WTC was just 300 feet from the site of a terrorist bombing attack in 1993.
NYPD and NYC DOC uniformed personnel (including the two correction officers trained to work with telephone lines with the DEC Rikers team) filled marked vans with the boxes of Cat5 cable we had just recently taken delivery of and rushed into Manhattan and downtown to the WTC site. At first the officers and Verizon personnel were laying out the cables from Verizon’s damaged switching center across and a little north on West Street, where a temporary command center was going to be placed, but when the South Tower fell, they had to abandon their efforts, move further north, and start all over again.
People feared the North tower would also fall. And it did, wiping out the area where the officers had been working with the cables only minutes earlier.
With cell phone services overwhelmed and wired phones giving fast busys, the Rikers DOC/DEC team worked autonomously. The DEC/Compaq lead technician Frank and I could still connect to, and monitor, the inmate systems remotely and as in the Y2K scenario of December 31 1999, the systems stayed up and available.
It was estimated that DOC office personnel would not be able to return to 60 Hudson Street for at least two weeks, maybe more. Accordingly, DOC management decided that the two retired ferry boats moored at Rikers Island that were being retained as emergency overflow space for dormitory style inmate housing would be converted to temporary office space for DOC civilian workers.
The boats had electrical power but no telephones, no networking infrastructure, and no furniture. The DOC/DEC team emptied our network supplies and spares closet and our remaining Cat5 cables to supply both telephones (four per cable) and terminals (one per cable). However, we did not have enough Ethernet networking frames or modules to meet the demand of all of the displaced 60 Hudson Street workers.
A DEChub 900 frame with room for 4 power supplies (right) and 8 networking modules
I relayed to local DEC/Compaq management the DOC’s need for large DEChub 900 frames, its power units, and Ethernet networking sub-modules. People were told to contact me and get the equipment to me in Basking Ridge NJ ASAP, and I’d then take it to Rikers.
The response was fast and heartening. I was getting emails and land line phone calls asking for directions to my home and then stayed up all night as co-workers drove in from disparate locations, some near-by, some very far away, to unload all sorts of new and used networking gear.
TIP and I offered the arriving drivers food and coffee and if needed, a place to crash to get some sleep. All of them grabbed a sandwich and coffee and got back into their cars. They were proud to be doing something, anything, to help. I know how they felt.
I took out the rear seats of the PT Cruiser to get full use of its 63 cubic feet of storage space.
The next morning, too hyper to sleep, I drove the first load of donated equipment to Rikers where it was unloaded and immediately installed in a building near the ferries. Other DOC officers and civilians were moving in old steel desks from storage facilities, terminating and running the Cat5 cables from the network modules through wiring ducts to locations on the ferries marked off by DOC management. There was no time to be fancy; sometimes an entire Cat5 cable serviced one phone. When they ran out of wiring ducts and cable management systems, they used duct tape and cable ties to keep the cables from becoming obstacles and tripping up people.
It wasn’t pretty (and that troubled the DEC/Compaq team) but it worked.
60 Hudson Street civilian and uniform personnel started coming in as team members were still punching down and testing the Cat5 network cable jacks and the telephone connections.
When I got home there were more networking equipment donations and I made another trip the next day. We were all running on nervous energy and anger. The DEC/Compaq Rikers team slept on the floor of the MIS trailer for four nights straight.
Note 2: I was reminded of something I heard a long time ago: If you want to be successful, surround yourself with the best people possible, people who are smarter and more skilled than yourself. I believe that, and I knew I worked with great people.
On the second trip back from delivering networking equipment to Rikers, somewhere on Route 80 west, I heard a psychiatrist on NPR say that the 9/11 tragedy would have a profound and lasting impact on people’s lives, their sense of self and safety, and that it would motivate people contemplating marriage to stop stalling and make the formal commitment to each other.
That makes sense, I thought.
On the other hand, the shrink continued, anyone in a tenuous relationship or marriage would react to 9/11 by getting out of that relationship in order to make their lives more meaningful while they still had the time to do that.
That too makes sense, I thought.
So essentially, the shrink said, 9/11 will cause some people to get married and some people to get divorced.
The little PT Cruiser, emptied of its second load, hummed along at speed, the overdrive fifth gear making the car as quiet as a big Buick, the only sound (other than the shrink on the radio) was a small American flag flapping furiously on the rear cross bar of the roof rack.
These shrinks, I thought to myself, they make these pronouncements and when they turn out to be true, everyone thinks they’re geniuses.
Stuff like this; it’s either going to happen, or not going to happen. There’s a 50/50 chance of being right. If I, or my team, had a 50/50 chance of getting things right, we would be marched off Rikers island under armed guard.
Two weeks later, TIP told me she wanted a divorce.
No drama, no violence, just a simple request.
That damn shrink was right. Lucky guess.
I had an odd thought. It is much easier to be told by one’s spouse that your marriage is over than to do the telling.
Why?
Less guilt.
In addition to the 19 residents of Basking Ridge lost on that day, DEC/Compaq lost four employees attending a conference at Windows On The World, and one more in one of the hi-jacked planes.
Approximately 2,977 innocent people died that day.
Petrol station in West Beach, approx. 11pm Adelaide time. Attendant told me a plane had flown into a building in New York. Then corrected himself – two planes, he said.
I’ve been reading these recent COALs fingers crossed your marriage would make it, so… damn. Not married myself, but not predisposed against it either.
Never liked the PT’s shape, however.
The wording in one of the stories from 2-3 weeks ago gave away the final result. His story telling skills helped him keep it under wraps.
Will seriously miss this series when it ends.
I didn’t know whether that was a giveaway or refering obliquely to something I missed within the article, so I was still hoping…
When these cars were young enough to have had only 1, or at most 2 owners, I seem to remember they were the “darling” of nearly every car magazine…..even Consumers Reports liked them. I considered buying one on a few occasions but finding a PT or a Neon in my area with a manual transmission was next to impossible. And besides, being a 4 door was a “demerit” in my book. Then, hallelujah, Chrysler gave us the 2 door PT….but manual transmission examples were still hard to come by and the convertible cost almost as much as a Mustang.
Still think the PT Cruiser and the Prowler could have started Plymouth in a new direction if the money had been there to add a 3rd model that would compliment those other 2.
We purchased an ’05 PT Cruiser with the 5-speed in 2014 with the intent to pull it 4 wheels down behind our motorhome as part of our retirement winter getaway plan (we live in WI)…that did NOT work out as hoped (a long story), but we have enjoyed its peppy, fun driving demeanor. Our gas mileage and reverse gear experiences are exactly the same as the writer described, but overall it’s a pretty nice little car to tool around in.
Oh boy, the picture of that PT Cruiser convertible reminds me of the exact same vehicle I had as a rental (in January, in Minnesota). The car looks great with the top down but of course that roll bar is inside the soft top and not only eats up a huge amount of space but also is there to bang your head and or arms on with any sort of stretching motion. Other companies integrate such structural elements into the roof or the seats or make them retractable but not with the PT Cruiser. I thought it was the most poorly designed car I had ever driven.
I remember that when the Dodge Caliber came out, “Consumer Reports” ranked it below the older PT Cruiser, which was based on the Dodge Neon platform.
Where I live these were very popular with senior citizens. (I think they reminded them of the cars of their youth and there was a heavy nostalgia factor involved.) They also had quite a bit of cargo space, the fold-down back seats were practical, and they had a fairly high seating position and were easy to get in and out of.
In the last few years there have been a lot of fairly low mileage examples hitting the used car market, especially on Craig’s List, as their owners are giving up driving or moving up to (I don’t know what) on that golden highway in the sky. Sure, there were better cars available when new, but as a used car, you could certainly make a worse choice for the money.
Was driving to inspect some roof replacement at a customer’s site (an 1+ hour drive) when heard the first news bulletin. Thought, this is rare, even BS. Ten to fifteen minutes later, the second one, again thought these doesn’t add up, the radio guy must have smoked something. When I reached our customer’s site, they told me.
Would have never imagined that 15 years later I would read the words from someone who was there and made things happen to bring everything back. Well done sir!
The interior packaging of that car is brilliant. The engine compartment too, except I wouldn’t want to fix anything in there.
I love this series and your writing style. You have the knack to transmit the reader the feelings and heat of the moment. The pictures and youtube video closings have been spot on during the whole series.
Ummmmmm… wow.
Our author sure has crammed a lot of living into one lifetime.
We all have. I was driving to work that Tuesday and turned on the radio about halfway there. I couldn’t make sense of what was being said but it felt _bad_. I got the rest of the story when I got to work and found everyone clustered around the small color TV the boss kept in her office. I cancelled my appointments for that day and stayed on the phone to my then-wife as she held our 3 month old son and wondered to me what kind of world we had bought him into.
I never want to see video of the jets hitting the towers again. Ever. Again. I stay away from the TV on the days around then and avoid all the documentaries.
I don’t get the hatred of the PT Cruiser. Yeah, Chrysler let it sit un-updated way too long and cheapened the interior on the refresh, but how quickly we forget that the California trendy crowd was paying above sticker to get one of those things when they came out. Maybe if Chrysler had kept production under demand we’d still be thinking nice things about those cars today.
Never owned one, but my boss at Goochland Custom Buildings (my two year hiatus from nearly two decades in the Richmond motorcycle business) had a creme colored one with five speed, which I drove quite often. And that overdrive was wonderful on the highway. Other than disappointing gas mileage for a car of its size, that’s definitely a car that punched way above its weight class.
I think today, the issue is one of repairs and costs. Not sure they make the best pre-owned cars now that we’re getting into some of them becoming 16 years old.
Just put a radiator and steering rack in my ’02 with 170k miles. 25mpg in mixed driving. Ugly exhaust note. Best ingress and seat comfort I’ve ever owned.
Like the Caravan before it, radio display is dead but plays, passenger rear window is broken, glove box needs a latch, and the AC is never quite cold enough, but for a daily driver/van to keep miles off my 987, I’m stoked. Paid a whole 1200 usd for her awhile back, and hope my youngest learns to drive in it.
It is kinda like your first car all over again.
Left PAX NAS for a software mtg on 911, then was not allowed back on post for 3 days.
I think the PT Cruiser’s distinctiveness is the reason why some people dislike it today. Cars with a personality tend to have a short shelf life, but the Cruiser hung on for years. I thought it was a pretty cool idea when it came out, but after awhile, it faded into the background because it was everywhere. It’s basically a small wagon, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Sorry for your lady luck, RP. I think you’ve set this up pretty well, so it’s not a surprise, but inevitability isn’t always easy. From your comments, it seems like you’re still working, so you obviously love what you do, and taking a back seat to anything isn’t what some people are built for. But faking who you are doesn’t usually work either, so keep on truckin’, man! 🙂
I always liked the PT Cruiser, but always hated the name. I don’t know what I would have called it otherwise, but thought that PT Cruiser was too esoteric, who would know that PT stood for “Plymouth Truck”? It’s about the same size as the original minivan which is still my gold standard for usability and funcitonality, minus the sliding doors. I wanted one myself back in the day when our kids were still children. I could never get my wife on board and we ended up with a Pontiac Aztek instead.
I rented several of these over the years and my intial impressions were confirmed, other than the fact that I never got anywhere near the fuel mileage advertised. I could have been driving a Suburban (or a least an extended minivan) for the 22-24 MPG I got on a couple of trips back to Cleveland from Grand Rapids. Ouch.
When the Chevy HHR was released (also bearing a silly name), I thought GM was just playing catch up. While they were, I did like the SS version better than the turbo versions of the PT Cruiser. The HHR SS seemed a little more all of one piece than the PT Cruiser Turbos, but I wouldn’t kick either one out of the garage if they fell in my lap.
I had a feeling from your last post that your marriage would come to it’s conclusion. So sorry to hear this.
I remember reading that the “PT” means “personal transportation”. Seems redundant, every car is personal transportation. And “HHR” means “heritage high roof”. Silly.
And I always thought it stood for ‘Patrol Torpedo’.
These were significantly smaller than the original minivans; I’d say more akin to what the small CUV is today.
If I recall the PT stood for Pronto, from the Plymouth Pronto Cruizer concept which foreshadowed the production vehicle. Of course the 98% of the population who doesn’t follow the auto show circuit would have no idea of the reference.
Reading this reminded me of 2 things.
The first being how insanely popular PT Cruisers were for the first year or 2 when they came out. Dealers were marking them up and they quickly became the darlings of the faux street rod crowd. For years afterward, they would appear at car shows with little custom paint touches that said something like “a touch of class” or a picture of Betty Boop. Thankfully that fad has mostly faded but every so often one will show up. To me, they’re fine as a late model commuter but not something that belongs at a car show
The second brought me back to Ground Zero where I was deployed for a month immediately following the attacks and I saw (and smelled) things that I never dreamed I would have to see in the continental United States. There I saw the evil that men can do but I also saw the goodness in people amidst the chaos in the weeks following and anyone in a uniform was treated like a rock star. I knew life in the U.S. would never be the same after that and unfortunately my kids will never know life in the pre-9/11 world.
For some reason the backside of a PT reminded my wife of a
toilet seat. (!)
And it happened again: Cannot click on images to see them
at native resolution.
“For some reason the backside of a PT reminded my wife of a toilet seat.”
Well, it wouldn’t have been the first time that Chrysler used a toilet seat-inspired design element on the rear of a car!
Image source: oldcarbrochures.org
My Wife and I were invited to one of the marketing test focus groups that previewed the different pre production versions of the PT. Some were just mock ups, bodies with no interiors or mechanicals and some were with interiors and no mechanicals and some were full cars.
We were asked how the car made us feel. One of the mock ups reminded us of the old Volvo of the early 60’s that a lot of us “Old Hippies” drove in our youth . almost everyone gave it a thumbs up. We stayed in touch and was going to buy one, but the final version was not quite what we saw in our preview. It seems that the “Bean Counters” got involved. So we held on to our Montero 4 door.
Later I read that BMW was bringing the MINI to the USA. I signed up . I had previously owned many Minis including one Traveler that brought our wedding cake to the reception. (DIY Wedding). So we bought the 4th one delivered in the SF Bay area. (If I can ever get registered on this site, I will submit our experiences . hint hint! )
Grey bar along the top, at far right is the ‘Register’ link.
I have tried 3 times never got an email back to join. Checked my spam and trash, nothing.
Bummer. I’m not a tech-head so I can’t help. There will probably be others reading this piece who might know what the glitch is. If you don’t get a response here, contact Paul at curbsideclassic@gmail.com
Same thing happened when I registered at myspace. I later
logged in, told me username or PW were incorrect, clicked
“Forgot my Username”, e-mail, never heard from them.
Welcome to the Internet – sh** disappears into it like
socks in a dryer!
Every so often I get the same complaint from a new subscriber. The trick that apparently works is to try to log in and pretend you forgot your password, and ask it to send you a new one. It may be an issue of browser memory.
Tried that got the reply but it wouldn’t allow me to log in with the supplied password. after a few tries it kicks me off the site.
CORRECTION:
I can tap/click on images embedded in comments to
view them native size, just not in the main article.
Try it now.
It’s been mentioned before, but there is (for some of us and nobody knows why) a manual adjustment to make on each picture specifically to turn it into a media file so it can be enlarged.
This is in addition to having to manually center and resize the picture. With multiple pictures being in any given article, it’s easy to overlook this step.
I use the NextCellent Gallery plugin. I like it better than the built-in media handling.
I can click on all of the pictures, but only the damage map and Robert Plant enlarge noticeably, the rest are the same size. They appear to be about 600 pixels wide I think.
When I updated the pictures, some were quite small in the first place. That may explain what you are seeing.
If I understand how pictures are handled, clicking on one should then display the original (or source file that is on the server). The series 62 Cadillac is about 11 inches wide on my screen, while these pictures are about half that.
Thanks! Pics now go native upon clicking.
It’s incredible how within 15 short years a car like the PT Cruiser can cycle through “wild and distinctive” to “blends in with traffic” to “rusty, quirky old beater”.
Being as young as I am, it’s about the only car I’ve seen go through every single one of these stages besides the first generation New Beetle. Both of which seem incredibly dated now, with that late-90s/early-00s Retro Blob(TM) look. You could toss the 2002 Thunderbird into that genre, but they’ve failed to reach “quirky old beater” stage because of the higher price and wealthier owner base. Most examples remaining are pristine, garaged-kept summer cars.
The PT and Beetle are unique because a solid majority of daily-driven examples loudly shake and clatter down the street with faded paint and missing hubcabs, piloted by their largely apathetic third owners… probably similar to the life of most AMC Pacers circa 1985. The cute-sy retro theme was such a flash in the pan and the underlying mechanical bits could not be more plebeian and disposable (Neon and Golf), with resale value to match.
I’m surprised yours held up so well because among the many owners I know, the PT Cruiser is one of the most troublesome and quick to fall apart vehicles of the 2000s. Right up there with the Chevy Aveo and older Kias, these started populating scrapyards before the year 2010 hit and are bound to be downright rare pretty soon. Sure, there will always be a few pristine “woody” special editions hidden away in some eccentric’s garage, but the PT just goes to show that a distinctive, initially popular design does not automatically make for a long lasting collector’s item.
If Beanie Babies were a car, this would be it.
Don’t know that I would lump the Neon and the PT Cruiser along with the VW Golf in terms of parts….though I’ve never owned a Chrysler and don’t know what the parts cost is typically for those, people are often surprised when I mention that parts for my VW are typically expensive (maybe they are still thinking of the Beetle, an economy car….but the watercooled VWs are a bit different). Though the Golf and the PT Cruiser may have been priced similarly as “whole cars”, parts I think for the VW are more expensive than for the Chrysler as a whole, and (not sure if the Chrysler is similar, such as for ATF fluid)…very specific…you are told to use specific Coolant (G12 in my case), Synthetic power steering fluid, DOT4 brake fluid (vs DOT 3), etc…as the fuel injection parts are Bosch, you pay about the price would be for an upmarket (Volvo) car part would cost. I don’t know how this plays to the total cost of ownership, but I’d think the VW would cost more to maintain than the Chrysler, even if other costs (insurance, fuel, etc) might be roughly similar, even if you were to disregard using the recommended fluids.
“But after a few minutes it calmed down and sounded like any other non-Russian tractor.”
Sometimes your humor is so dry you have to wash it down with something.
“The response was fast and heartening. I was getting emails and land line phone calls asking for directions to my home and then stayed up all night as co-workers drove in from disparate locations, some near-by, some very far away, to unload all sorts of new and used networking gear.
TIP and I offered the arriving drivers food and coffee and if needed, a place to crash to get some sleep. All of them grabbed a sandwich and coffee and got back into their cars. They were proud to be doing something, anything, to help. I know how they felt.”
…and sometimes you make me well up with tears.
I was home on sick leave that morning and watched it unfold on TV. Here in the Midwest, seemingly away from everything, the mood changed. Forever.
Ditto. 9-11 was my second day at my new job in the Middle West after having moved from Georgia (still there, coming up on 15 years). It was very surreal seeing Air Force One and several fighters winging their way East in the clear, blue sky – no another aircraft to be seen in the air that day. My car connections would be that my New Beetle was a year old, and I had purchased my Dad’s ’69 F-100 a couple months before to eventually use on the farm we had yet to buy at the time. Truly a time of new beginnings, both personally and nationally.
I walked in to my job at Ducati Richmond in time to hear of the first plane. Of course, we thought it was this incredibly strange accident. Was there when the second hit. This is no accident. By the time of the Pentagon plane, we were already watching the television back in the service department, and I’ll still remember the owner’s wife’s reaction to that one. I’d always considered here a overly-stylish stone cold bitch up to that point.
The the fourth hit . . . . 20 miles from where I’d lived three years earlier. And I knew the area very well, the road to the crash site was one of my favorites where I’d haul out my café racers after drinking a bit too much at the local bars on Route 30.
That’s when I broke down.
We closed the shop about a half hour later. Nobody was in the mood to work on anything.
I was on my way to the big PRINT show in Chicago that morning, it’s a three hour ride from Grand Rapids to McCormick Place. I distinctly remember the beautiful sunrise that day as I made my way into the office.
The owner of the company and I were going over for a day trip to check out some new equipment when we got a call from our shipping manager. We’d had a Keb Mo CD in the (Saab) 9-5’s changer, so we weren’t aware of what was happening.
We stopped at a gas station in New Baltimore MI, to try and get some more info than what we were hearing on the radio. There was a newly constructed Days Inn right behind the gas station and the parking lot was jammed. It seems that many other travelers stopped for the same reason we did. We joined the rest of them in the main meeting room just as the second tower fell. It was surreal.
At that point, we decided that we would fuel up and head back to Grand Rapids not knowing what we would encounter on our trip back. We thought it better to get home sooner rather than later. We got home without incident, but listening to the early reports were quite frightening.
When we got back to the office, no one was working. Several people who lived nearby and went home and grabbed their TVs and brought them into the office. We sat for hours, stunned, trying to make sense of the day.
I think we knew in our hearts that nothing would be the same as it had been…
Our farm truck has both cruise control and a manual. If you downshift or otherwise take it out of gear, the cruise control turns off.
Another good read, I remember the sunny weekend before 9/11 as well. And a few days before, watching an episode of “Mad TV” in the common room of my freshman dorm at college, totally unaware that the 90s prosperity and safety bubble and all the expectations that came with it to that 18 year old were coming to an end.
I never disliked the PT Cruiser, thought it was pretty good looking. Was surprised, though, when one I got as a rental got mileage in the high teens; maybe it was out of tune somehow.
My senior prom date’s parents got a new one in Spring 2001, dark blue. She wanted to go to prom in it, I insisted on my Crown Vic.
You and I are of similar ages. I was sitting in a History of Technology class, first semester of my senior year of college. A good friend of mine walked into class and told me she’d heard on the radio while driving to campus that a plane had hit one of the WTC towers, but she didn’t have any further info. As this was well before the era of smartphones and that building did not have wireless internet (also rare in 2001), class carried on as usual, no one aware of the extent of what had happened. Class ended sometime after 10 AM and we walked across university commons to the basement wing of the library, where there were several televisions, to find out what was going on. A large crowd had gathered and even before we could see the TV screens, we knew it was much worse than either of us had imagined. The reality hit hard over the next hours and days, that the nation and world had irrevocably changed.
Eh, I think you should’ve taken the PT Cruiser to prom… I understand you thought your CV was the classier/more formal/appropriate ride but the PT was a fresh, novel car that would’ve garnered FAR more attention than a lesser version of the Town Car limos that I am sure a number of your peers also probably took.
The PT scooted just fine with the 5 speed. The shifter feel is a bit disconnected and fiddly, and the transmission end bushings on the cables go out. Some bits of rubber, some flat washers, and a couple of cotter pins and you are back in business, saving hundreds of dollars in new cables. There is absolutely no room to work under the hood.
I live near the Marine Air Base at Miramar, and there were pilots strapped into their F18s 24/7 for a week or two parked at the end of the runway, lined up like the Blue Angels do at an air show, along with crews at the ready. Their orders were to immediately intercept anything that was up in the sky. By staying on the ground, their patrols and the bad guys would not be mistaken for each other. Distressing times.
I had forgotten these got (seemingly) such poor gas mileage. But folks saw them as “small cars”, and expected the kind of gas numbers “traditional” small cars got. They forgot PT’s had a large engine….probably the largest 4 cylinder engine for a car it’s size.
PT Cruisers were sold in the U.K. and I think a few other overseas countries with the smaller 2 liter from the Neon. Gas mileage wasn’t much better with the smaller engine.
The PT Cruiser was quite popular here too, certainly in its first years. It was available with the 2.0 and 2.4 gasoline engines and as the 2.2 CRD with a Mercedes-Benz diesel engine.
I thought the PT was neat looking when it came out but never considered buying one but I have 2 memories of them
1. The Toronto International Carshow the year the PT was introduced, Chrysler had one car on the floor and you coundn’t get near it because of the crowd swarming it.
2. A couple of years later me and the brother in law are at the Mopar Nationals-back then the show was mainly B, E & A bodies pre 1975, but this year one show field was filled with PT Cruisers from stock to major accesorized. This was before the Charger and Challenger came back and I got to thinking that this PT allowed younger folks to participate in the show–not everyone can own a 1970 Roadrunner.
When I saw PT Cruisers flood the local cruise nights they were definitely not being brought in by younger folks. They were mostly retirees who cashed in their social security checks to put every flame decal, fake side exhaust pipes and adhesive applied chrome doodad from jc Whitney, oh and of course fuzzy dice, ugh, to justify flooding classic car cruise nights with new mass produced cars. It’s one thing to have representation but it’s another when there’s so many PT cruisers in the lot that the 1970 RoadRunner can’t get a spot.
If I wanted to see 27 PT Cruisers circa 2001 I could just walk around the local strip mall parking lot on any given day. That’s the true source of the backlash people have for them.
9/11: I was settling in for an ordinary morning at the office when my senior partner called from home, telling us to turn on a TV because we were under attack. No work got done that morning as we watched the horror unfold. I had actually been there once back in the mid 80s, so I had a real appreciation for the scope of what was happening.
The PT Cruiser: I also remember that these were really hot commodities when they came out. I had a case through my office where someone who owned one of the early ones got in an accident and had to wait for something like 6 weeks before crash parts were available. I remember being mystified by the car’s morphing from a Plymouth to a Chrysler. These things had a real diehard fan base early on.
Your storytelling skills continue to make this a must-read on Sundays.
One time the captionist called to do a test before an afternoon news broadcast. She said she heard we had a huge snow storm, they monitor our broadcast for quality, and asked if I had any trouble getting to work. Without even thinking I told her I left the car at home and took the PT Cruiser. Oh I love those cars are they good in the snow she asked. Oh, very good I said. The have seating for about 50 and standing room for dozens more…
In my circles the PT stands for Public Transit when you are too embarrased to tell everyone you took the bus.
I liked the PT when it first came out. It wasn’t my thing but it was a fresh look for the retro style thing that was happening. As others have said it went from cool looking to blending in to rusty beater. Most are either gone now or maybe I just don’t notice them.
I was at work on 9/11/01 and someone had tuned the radio to an all news station after hearing that a small plane had crashed in downtown Manhattan. I had to step out that morning for an appointment and stopped at my mother’s house on the way back and she was watching the news on tv. Returning to work I said it was live news on every channel. Is it bad they asked. Very bad. Not much else was said for the rest of the day.
On 9-11 I had taken off work that day as I was celebrating my 29th birthday. My father-in-law and I went to a salvage yard in Kansas City for fun. They were visiting regularly as we had just announced Mrs. Jason was pregnant.
At the U-Wrench-It, few were there which wasn’t atypical for a weekday. Someone in one of the yard vehicles had a radio playing. All I heard was something about a hijacking and my initial thought was thinking of the all the hijacked airliners in the late 1970s. I thought nothing of it.
Leaving there and heading back toward St. Joseph on I-435, the interstate was full of taxis heading toward KCI at very high speeds. I was in my ’86 Crown Vic and running 70+ mph – some cabs were likely exceeding 100 mph. We did not have the radio on.
Getting back to St. Joe and pulling into the driveway, my wife pulled up in my Thunderbird and said “World War III just got started.” First we had heard about it. Going in the house, my mother-in-law confirmed what was going on. It was just after noon before I actually learned anything about it. I went into work as several had forgotten I was taking the day off and were concerned I had been involved in other, unreported activities.
Another well-written episode in this series, Mr. Plaut. I’m sorry your marriage didn’t work out. TIP should’ve known, based on your personality, that you weren’t going to be the type of husband she wanted before she ever agreed to marry you (i.e., it’s not your fault).
Good choice on the 5-speed in the PT Cruiser. I’ve driven one that a friend owns, since 2002 when he bought it, but with an automatic. It’s a lot less quick…about the same as our 1994 Taurus (3.0 Vulcan).
But the PT’s space utilization is great especially in relation to its length. If it weren’t that I did not need a new car while it was in production (I keep mine well after their age has reached double-digits; driving less than 5.000 miles a year helps), I’d probably have one. The 2.4L four-cylinder had its teething troubles early on, such as in the Dodge Stratus, but by 2000 when the PT Cruiser came along, it was as reliable as anything else.
The PT Cruiser was also fun to drive. Being so short helped, and the refinement that Chrysler put into it, in developing it from its Neon ancestry, was impressive. Too bad Daimler cheapened it in its midlife “refresh.” But maybe that was all we could have expected. There was no real following up the PT Cruiser, unique as it was; especially since Daimler had run off the talented product conception and development teams at Chrysler, and had installed their own boring drones in their place.
Sorry about the girl…
Oy, do I remember that sunny, warm September morning. I was working in the chemistry lab at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. We clustered, horrified, around a couple of small tv’s that some of the backshift guys had brought in. An hour or so after the second plane the management sent everyone home and went into a super-high security mode. A couple of days later we were let back in under the highest-possible security mode: everyone had to pass through one gate with metal detectors, and we couldn’t carry anything that wasn’t in a clear plastic bag. Security was relaxed a little bit in subsequent days. We’re close to Sea-Tac airport and Boeing Field, so it seemed quite eerie for there to be no air traffic overhead at all.
After a week or so of tense days at work and nothing but 9/11 reruns on tv, I took some leave I had coming, and we went on a road trip to some of the more desolate parts of Oregon, leaving tv and the internet behind.
We had an early oughts PT Cruiser that served as my wife’s daily driver for three years or so. I only drove it infrequently but it was a very entertaining car to drive. Hers had the high output turbo (and the four speed auto); you definitely wanted to make sure the front wheels were pointed straight if you gave it the boot. We used it on vacation trips, which accounted for most of driving time, and it was not a bad vehicle for this use. As some above have said there is a lot of room for stuff, especially considering how compact the car actually is. From a personal standpoint I thought that removing the rear seats was more trouble than it was worth; considering how small the rear door openings are and how awkward it was to maneuver the seats through these opening, we just folded the seats up and went from there.
We never had any real trouble from the PT Cruiser itself. What we did have trouble with was the dealer who sold us the car. At some point in our ownership the air bag fault light came on, at first this was an intermittent occurrence but, of course, it didn’t fix itself. The real problem, which the service techs confirmed, was that the air bags would not deploy if the fault light was on. To make a very long story short we took the Cruiser to the dealer numerous times and, after a lot of yada-yada-yada, they admitted that they had no idea what was actually wrong and had no idea of how to fix it. I may or may not have went off on the service manager at this point; by this time the fault light was on full time and their “answer” was for us to trade the car in on something else. We took their advice and bought a new Camry. Sometimes karma does slap those who deserve it, this dealership (name supplied upon request) was one of those Chrysler stores who lost their franchise during the great purge a few years after this.
Both my brothers are still running their Cruisers. The older guy has 60K on an ’06. His only complaint is the mileage, which is consistently below 20 mpg American. The middle brother’s ’02 has 250K on it. He keeps fixing it because he loves the packaging, and his 16 yr-old daughter is about to get it as her first car. She likes it, allowing how it falls on the positive side of cool–specifically because of the faux woodgrain sides. It’s been through a couple of transmissions and other bits. A new alternator was $500. My nephew changed out the heater core in 2014 and you would not believe the amount of parts were strewn on the the ground during that act ($1200 if the dealer did it) . I drove it two weeks ago while visiting and, though it’s showing some age, it’s still a brilliant example of how to design a voluminous space on a relatively short wheelbase. Plus the seating position is absolutely optimal for me.
I was in a Home Depot 20 miles north of Manhattan during the attacks. The employees on the floor said nothing, or didn’t know. When I left to go to my restaurant job, and a bar regular, seeing my car drive by, ran out and stopped me on a side street, exclaiming, “Did you HEAR That? Did you hear the bastards crashed into the Trade Center?!” I parked and went in the back door in of the pub to see the South Tower falling. My boss, doing the dailies on his laptop at the corner of the bar, didn’t look up when he quietly announced, “It’s the end of the world”.
A day later, I drove to Blauvelt State Park, where I regularly take a constitutional, and climbed the rocks to gaze at the smoke plume, and eventually, the twin shafts of light, but I never visited the site. I still think of the handful of times I went to the observation deck of the WTC, or into the restaurant at the top. I’ve been by the Freedom Tower on my way to Brooklyn, but haven’t stopped. I don’t know why.
When they took your money for the new alternator did they use a gun? I think I could buy 5 alternators and have some change left over for $500
Thanks for sharing. I used to have an acquaintance who had two of these in succession. He was an older retired fellow who was very serious in his personality. I always thought the car showed he had a playful side as well. I always liked them but was under the spell of a VW TDI at the time.
I, like most Americans, had a very somber ride home from work in that car on 9/11. After realizing the first plane was not just a terrible aviation accident, my entire office drove to the nearest TV we could find in a public place, at a Circuit City electronics store, and just watched TV dumbfounded with several hundred other people.
Over the previous couple of years I had developed an enormous fear of flying that came out of nowhere and 9/11 was the nail in that coffin. I simply decided to never fly again on 9/11. I just overcame that last year (shout out to Captain Tom Bunn’s SOAR book) and flew on three trips last year, including one on 9/11 itself. I’m flying home from a visit to Michigan next month on 9/11 as well. I’m not afraid of the plane crashing anymore, but it’s impossible to get on a plane without remembering that day.
I was heading up to a class on the top floor at Old Main at Augustana College that morning. It was a gorgeous day, and I appreciated it as I walked from the Volvo to campus. Got to the top floor meeting room and the TV was on in there, they had said a plane hit the WTC and it may have been an accident. While my classmates and the professor were watching (the class never started), the second plane hit. Class was dismissed, so I went down to the office. As I parked in downtown Rock Island to go into Klockau, Marquis and Skorepa to pick up the inter-office correspondence, the radio reported that the first tower had collapsed. Sitting in the 940, in a parking space, is forever burned into my memory. Later I arrived at Illinois Casualty but not much was being done. As I drove home later, all the gas prices were through the roof and there were lines at every station, dragging out into the street in many cases. I stopped at Kennedy Interiors and yakked with Russ Kennedy about all that was going on. New York City never felt as close to the Midwest as it did that day.
The wheelbase of the PT, at 103″, is not particularly short. The car is tall, and the wheels are pushed out to the corners, so the car looks short. It is a very efficient packaging job. One “feature” of the styling is that the roof comes down far into the space of the windshield, requiring the driver to lean forward and down to see the overhead traffic signals. The Chevy HHR shares this “feature”.
The Saab 96 (and presumably 93) had this “feature.” At least my 96s were MY 1968 or later. On earlier ones, the header rail was even lower.
The first generation of the renaissance 300M(2003)
had this problem: Drivers having to lean forward to
see the hanging signal banks. Something about
Chrysler’s funky styling that doesn’t seem to happen
in other manufacturers’ cars.
I was pleasantly surprised when Revell came out with their model kit of the PT Cruiser. But then, everyone did – it probably still holds the record of the most replicated in scale four-door American car (unless you count the Hummer H2).
I was living at home and working retail. That Tuesday was my day off after an 11 pm closing shift the night before. It had already happened when I woke up – as I went from bed to the bathroom my mom looked at me oddly solemnly and said “It’s a sad day for America”…it didn’t quite register until I relieved myself and woke up a bit more. Even then, I had to flip around and confirm it was on every channel before it fully hit home.
On that Tuesday we were awakened by the radio, as usual. Something we heard on the news made me turn on the TV. Tom Brokaw was saying something about how odd it was to see only one of the World Trade Center towers. I still didn’t quite understand what had happened. I think it was then that, on live TV, a jet crashed into the second tower. (Perhaps I’m conflating things, too.) And I certainly remember seeing the second tower collapse, and being hardly able to absorb what I was seeing. My partner went off to work. I was between jobs right then, and I watched the TV obsessively, trying to piece together what had happened. I remember the feeling of wanting to do something–anything–to come to grips with what had happened. At least, in my guise as a church organist, I had the following Sunday’s service to plan.
On the subject of the PT Cruiser, we’ve had one experience with it, and it was most pleasant. We rented a 2007 convertible on one vacation, and it was great fun. It had the mid-level turbo engine, so it moved along very well. It was very comfortable and fun to drive (despite a rather large turning radius), and there was enough room for us (small trunk, though). It really was worth consideration as a car to own; Chrysler’s spotty reliability over too many years finally turned us away from it. But it was fun to drive in San Diego!
I was awakened by my radio alarm and I was surprised to hear President Bush’s voice instead of Elliott of Elliott in the Morning. I was a senior at GMU just outside DC. I skipped my normal lollygagging and got right up and turned on the tv. I was immediately greeted with the burning tower. My memory of the timing is likely off, but I seem to remember only one tower hit when I turned it on. I went to the bathroom and came back to see the second tower hit. But I may be confusing it with the first shots of the Pentagon smoke. I doubt the President would have been speaking before the second tower was hit.
My first time trying to drive a stick solo was a PT Cruiser. I was working for Progressive Insurance as a claims rep. They had me visiting the Service Center where you drop off and pick up your car if you elect to use their repair shop versus picking your own. The owner showed up and the manager told me to go get it from the back. I managed to limp it around, including backing it up, never exceeding 3 mph. I was so proud of myself for not stalling it. The owner looked it over, popped the hood and checked it out. He was happy with the repairs but noticed the tire showed some impact damage and should have been replaced. The manager agreed and said we would take it back and get a new one. I started to close the hood but forgot about the prop rod until it was almost all the way down. I bent the crap out of it but without missing a beat, the manager said, “and we’ll replace the prop rod too.” Everyone laughed as I stood there dying of embarrassment.
Ha Ha I bought that same exact car new as well. Still have it. But rust in salty NE Illinois is taking its toll. Its the longest I have ever owned a car. Been great for me.
I was in 8th grade history class during second period when we thought something was up, some of the faculty were aware and we’re trying to keep a lid on it since there were reports of people jumping out of the upper floors and didn’t want the kids to know(I remember hearing that softly in the hallway since my desk was close to the door, I brushed it off as misinterpretation ATM). By the time our teacher caught wind he sheepishly turned the TV on and before we knew it the next plane hit the second tower. I don’t know if I truly understood the gravity of the event at that moment but it did immediately open my eyes and realize the USA wasn’t just some isolated island from the rest of the world, at least no longer. I assume it wouldn’t have taken tragedy for me to realize that eventually as I grew up, but that was a strange feeling for me at the time, especially with the direct effects – one day New York may as well been another planet, the next everyone I know lost family, lost friends, lost jobs, lost money, were stranded away from home(flight ban) and we’re looking up at the skies fearing the next one, no matter where you’re from. That was the Y2K moment everyone went mad over two years earlier. I don’t want to be cliche and say it transformed me after that day but it certainly was eye opening.
I just wanted to say that this COAL series has been ridiculously captivating, I’ve not commented much in earlier installments since much of the subject matter wouldn’t at all interest me by itself, but damned if I haven’t been opening up this site first thing every Sunday morning the past few months to see the next chapter. That’s the mark of great storytelling.
Sorry to hear the marriage ended. The psychology of 9/11 probably impacted a lot of relationships. Mine, fortunately for he better. My wife and I were separated for a week due to cancelled flights and the rarity of rental cars. Our reunion was a moment we were thankful for and we seemed even closer in the following months of stress.
We were merely inconvenienced by 9/11 in the big picture. Condolences for the loss of your neighbors and co-workers. My thanks to you as one of the people in there helping with the recovery.
The PT was a phenomena. A friend of mine is a second generation owner of an auto parts business that sells mostly to body shops. He took an early interest in the PT, bought an early sedan in dark blue. Traded for a later special edition of some sort in a bright gold color. He started a venture to have dash parts made for a custom look, but I think too many established players were making way too much product for him to compete.
I recall thinking when the PT was introduced that a second generation was probably impossible – how do you update a car that is built on a strong retro theme? Not easy to do, and the death of the PT, along with the apparent coming death of the VW Beetle testify that eventually these models are a dead end.
My mother missed it by a few days, having flown back from Avoca (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre) on the 8th, after spending quite some time (a month) with my Grandmother, who had previously fallen…she lived alone at that time, and it marked the end of her staying in her own house, as she went to live with my Uncle for the rest of her life (another 3 years, she died at age 94). I later told my mother that I was ever so glad that she kept her schedule to come home on the 9th.
The morning of 9/11 I was at work, a co-worker (who later became my manager, and eventually laid me off)..came by to tell me about the crash, which I think his wife called him about. I had a bit of a flashback to when I had heard about the Oklahoma City bombing (I heard about it late at night, as I was on a business trip in Tokyo when that happened). My 2nd thought was that they planned 9/11 for day after Labor day on purpose on a “return to work” after a holiday, when there were bound to be lots of people working. My company had televisions in the elevator landing area of each floor of the building I worked in, which were normally showing company propaganda, but were changed that day to show some TV broadcast network live, so everyone was standing around that area watching the TV, such that people coming in from the elevators and moving equipment had a hard time getting around them…I worked in those buildings for some 20 years and never saw the monitors turned to live TV except on 9/11). Guess with streaming video these days it wouldn’t be necessary to watch TV on the monitors, but 15 years ago we weren’t yet watching TV on our computer.
I was interested in the PT Cruiser, as I like vehicles of this type (small, roomy)…I remember taking my Father to an auto show to take a look at it when it first came out. I might have considered getting one, but I had bought my current car (2000 Golf) the year before and of course was out of the market…and as is not unusual for those who keep their cars awhile, they stopped making them before I was ready consider selling my Golf. While I admire the space and practicality, as I like a bit more space in the engine compartment…maybe if they were designing a car with a 1940’s type of hood they should have it open up on the sides to allow more access to the engine.
I guess I’m not too big a fan of cars styled a certain, way, prefer function over form, which is probably why I bought the Golf instead of the New Beetle….I thought the packaging of the Golf was more practical, if you don’t care about the styling…so I would probably bought an aircooled Beetle if I liked that style (or maybe a 1940’s car if I liked the PT Cruiser or HHR style).
We watched 9/11 on the TV it looked like new disaster movie but since the news kept repeating it we realised it must have been real, my daughter stood for the first time that day which was far more important, My then 79 year old father flying home from Melbourne the following day was pissed off security took his Swiss army knife just in case he tried to hijack the plane he thought it was ridiculous as he couldnt fly a plane and other than getting back to NZ had absolutely no use for one.
As always a great read.
On that morning my friend and I were both very underemployed so that morning we both found ourselves hungover, him crashing on my couch since he didn’t want to chance a DUI. We woke up to my mother calling me about a plane crash in New York just in time to see the second one. I went to the bathroom, threw up, then went into my second bedroom where my ham radio gear was and put myself on the network for any emergency radio traffic.
The ironic thing was that the bar we were at had a big calendar which they would mark with their specials and a bunch of fake holidays. The 11th was “NO NEWS DAY! Don’t read or watch the news today.” I don’t think anyone observed it that year.
The PT Cruiser (and its GM clone, the HHR) were alright. My guess is that the disdain for them comes from the fact that they were essentially retro-themed, compact minivans with traditional doors. I once read somewhere that a car salesman said the primary buyers eventually settled to older, retired, single guys, which sounds about right. For a small, practical minivan with a touch of flair, they were okay, and I always wondered if the PT Cruiser’s success was what inspired Mazda to ditch their ‘right-sized’ SWB MPV minivan for the smaller Mazda5, which, unfortunately, didn’t sell all that much better than the MPV it replaced.
Be that as it may, the most fascinating thing about the PT Cruiser is that it came out at approximately the same time as the seriously polarizing Pontiac Aztek. While the market demographic for those two vehicles would seem to have been similar, Chrysler seriously underestimated demand. But the Aztek’s production was wildly optimistic, with buyers staying away in droves and Azteks piling up on dealer lots, while Cruisers were being sold before they came off the transporters.
The problem with both vehicles was that the management of both companies simply didn’t listen to their marketing research. Chrysler’s research showed that there was a big market for their smaller, retro vehicle, yet they decided to err on the side of caution, which ended up meaning long waits before supply could finally catch up with demand.
Likewise, GM’s marketing said the opposite about the Aztek, yet GM management decided to go ahead and ramp-up for a big demand. We all know how that ended up.
The bottom line is that the PT Cruiser and the Pontiac Aztek are a great study in how a company should ‘not’ ignore their marketing staff’s research.
Dumb question, are you the same rudiger from the SA Forums?
And agreed on the PT/Aztek. If Chrysler could have got their quality control right back then they would be a juggernaut. They had so many desirable cars. Even the imports couldn’t beat them. They ended up beating themselves.
I don’t think so. What are the SA forums?
On 9/11 I was staying with a couple of friends of mine; it was a transitory period for me as I could not get a job in the youth-obsessed UK and already decided to try my luck in Austria. I can’t remember why the TV was on but I saw most of it live. I remember telling the wife’s son from a previous marriage with a Jordanian Arabs did not understand Americans and that those who committed have woken up a sleeping giant. They did, but not quite as I thought it would happen and no, I will not go into this here.
Chrysler PTs? I thought it was interesting when it was released and so did many Austrians – they seemed to be everywhere (with a surprising number being gasoline engined) but unlike the Voyagers did not have staying power, they have become almost extinct here other than relatively low mileage, well maintained ones which surprisingly keep their value (€ 4000 – 6000 seems to be the asking price for a mid 00s one). And yes, that retro style got old very quickly.
This series has been and remains excellent. This particular installment is rife with memories, observations and truths that are so simple, and yet so seldom considered, I think.
When the PT Cruiser was introduced I stopped in at my local dealership to pick up a brochure. They did not yet even have a model in stock to look at. I toyed with the idea of replacing my ’96 Sentra, which had been my commuter vessel, with something that might be more practical for some of that car’s other duties, like shuttling kids and dogs, hauling various items, and so on. Pricing was such that I couldn’t justify the purchase. I don’t lament this, but do think the car would’ve served me well, especially in hindsight, knowing what the following few years held in store.
I sat in the driver’s seat of that Sentra in my office parking lot in Cranford, NJ on that Tuesday morning looking East at the plumes of smoke across the Hudson, leaving a voicemail message for my former boss and close friend, something to the effect of, “I hope you’ll find time to call and let us know you’re ok.” She never did. The rest of that month was spend at funerals and memorials.
During the following 6 months after that day the decision to end my tenuous marriage was made (by me, and yes it would certainly have been easier to have the other party express that preference), my ex moving to Vermont with the kids, resulting in many months of weekly drives in that Sentra from NJ to Central Vermont. The upright seating position, extra space and cargo capacity of a PT Cruisier would certainly have been a help, although the Sentra, even with 180+ thousand miles on the clock, performed flawlessly. By early 2002 I had negotiated a buyout from the small business I’d started with a partner in 1999, and by Labor Day 2002 an uncomfortable marriage and an unsatisfactory business arrangement were in the past, though far from forgotten. The radio shrink was right.
Had a feeling ’bout this marriage, RL.
Very much appreciate this series, and your willingness to share your 9/11 experiences.
For me, I remember hearing a quick headline update around 8:55am, one of the items was “plane flies into World Trade Center.” I immediately thought of a Piper Cub, flown by a drunken young man jilted at the altar in front of everyone he knew and he was gonna show the world!
The radio stations where I work had but one TV with an antenna on 9/11. No cable had been run anywhere on the office complex where our stations resided. As I walked by that set, in the office of our program director, I saw one of the towers burning and thought to myself…lot of smoke for a Cessna or a Piper…just as the second plane hit the other tower and we all realized we were under attack.
I never saw a group of people act so quickly. The engineering staff bought TVs for all the studios and a dish to feed them. Salespeople took cancellations…the most memorable (for me) being Busch Media’s Bud Light “Real American Heroes” series, some of the most hilarious radio copy ever written or executed…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vPy2UJuaGU (The debut of the series in 2000)
…until a shocked, heartbroken nation saw the REAL, real American heroes climbing the burning towers…many never to return.
In fact, much of any radio advertising just felt inappropriate, all three of our stations spent at least the next several hours commercial-free, and much of our usual advertising business was flat-out cancelled after that…after all, advertising a sale where your prices are sizzling, for example, was instantly, obviously in poor taste.
All the playlists of our three music stations were reviewed; popular tunes like Third Eye Blind’s “Jumper” had to come out. I was monitoring TV audio and news reports for anything that could be edited together into little audio montages that would take the place of the “Nobody Plays More Music!” stuff that usually went inbetween the music when there wasn’t live talk scheduled. Since I’m on the Country station, finding appropriate music wasn’t as difficult as our Top 40 brethren.
And as inappropriate as this may sound, there was a sigh of relief mixed with my sorrow when we learned the fourth plane crashed in Shanksville, east of Pittsburgh. There was a brief but legitimate fear we were the next target as reports kept coming in between 9:30-10am that Flight 93 was headed toward Pittsburgh.
At least I got to go home that day, and the day after that, and so on.
Again, I appreciate the humanity you’ve put into your COAL series. I’ll miss it when it ends, but I’m rooting for a happy ending.
You’ve certainly given me a new appreciation for P/T Cruisers.
9-11 dawned a beautiful day and I was supposed to go check out a customer’s ’75 Fiat at her high-rise Arlington apartment building, which overlooked the Pentagon.
I stumbled into the kitchen and switched on my old 5″ b&w Sony a-top the microwave, just in time to see the first tower burning. Then the second plane hit!
At some point the news suddenly switched back to an office in the Pentagon where the reporter was saying something about an explosion and workers running in the courtyard.
I went down the hall to wake my brother. I knocked on his bedroom door and said “You need to turn on the TV. It won’t matter what channel!”
For me, the final shock that morning was when the twin towers came down. I never
expected that!
Needless to say, I didn’t make it to my Arlington appointment. Outside of emergency workers, NO ONE was going near the Pentagon that day.
After about a week of 24-7 saturation news coverage, television programming started gradually returning to normal. I never thought I could be so happy just to see a TV commercial!
Happy Motoring, Mark
Given the very practical size, the PT Cruiser foreshadowed today’s car trends. The small SUVs and CUVs of the present day essentially mark the return of car shapes before the longer, lower and wider dogma of the late 50s, as John875 noted a few months back. While cars like the Mégane Scenic were the first to show the benefits of this size of vehicle, the PT Cruiser was the one that made it look cool, or at least fashionable (they often reminded me of the kind of car you’d see in Donald Duck comics). Given the practicality of this car, demonstrated in this piece, there’s enough to say for it objectively. Even if most of those small CUVs look a lot less interesting today.
I hadn’t heard of the 9/11 attacks at all until my dad came home in the late afternoon and told me (living in Western Europe, it was just past 3 in the afternoon our time when the first tower was hit). Since he works at what was at the time one of the world’s major TV producing companies, there were more than enough screens available to see the events unfold. Apparently not much work was done anymore that late afternoon. The next day at school, coincidentally my 15th birthday, the halls were unusually quiet despite being packed as always, and many classes didn’t really focus on their subject at all. Some kids were being jokey, but the very young and usually clownesque history teacher put them in their place very firmly.
Just a few weeks later, I went to NYC with my family, my first time in the USA. The trip had been planned months before, celebrating my America-loving grandparents’ 45-year wedding anniversary. My fam had decided on cancelling at first, but reversed the decision later on; the New Yorkers were very happy to receive the few visitors that did come in those days. The streets surrounding the remains of the WTC were completely closed off, but the ruins could be seen at the end of the block. A very, very chilling sight.
RL, this has been a spectacular series thus far. Thanks for sharing some painful memories; so sorry to hear of the friends and acquaintances you lost.
The PT always fascinated me – an exercise in efficiency. I remember seeing my first one on the road, and a few years later renting one during a car repair. It seemed pretty good, if a little course with lots of hard plastic. By the end of their run they were a tremendous value, much like the Omni/Horizon. I thought the convertible was pretty cool too.
9/11 remains a memory that tears at my heart. My family had all passed through NYC the week before on their way for my daughter’s baptism. A childhood friend was in the basement terminal an hour before. Two acquaintances were working in the north tower; they both left small children behind.
I work at a school; we remained glued to our TVs in disbelief. Our house lies in the approach pattern for Houston’s major airport; it was eerie seeing the sky emptied for a few days. Like Pearl Harbor, our orbit once again shifted. And then we jumped neck deep into a quagmire.
I thought the PT was extremely nicely styled plus obviously very practical, a lot like as has been pointed out here a much later small CUV or mini minivan. Part London Cab, part late 30’s panel truck, hot rodder rake, but modern. The horizontal chrome grille bars that showed up later, maybe as a trim package, should have been there from the beginning. The later GM thing was as bad as the PT was good, although I think it was designed by the same guy.
CR said the driving position was awkward, but I only sat in one once and didn’t really think about it. I did go on a several hundred mile road trip in a Neon the PT is based on once including driving it and it was OK. And yeah, the gas mileage for some reason always seemed lower than expected on the PT. I had a 2.2 (previous Chrysler 4 I guess) 1988 Horizon automatic in the 90’s and it got what the EPA said, 32 on the highway, and those were the old more optimistic EPA numbers. Because the Horizon had a relatively big and not high revving engine it was geared pretty long and was fairly quiet and low revving on the highway even with the 3 speed auto (with lockup torque converter).
The 2002 PT 4 speed auto is only EPA rated 17/22. Pretty poor even for then for some reason. A Buick Century V6 got 18/26.
My first car was a manual with cruise control. A 1987 Buick Skyhawk Coupe (GM J-Body!). It did not have power steering, windows, locks, a/c, rear defrost, or even a clock in the radio ( ! ) but it had cruise (and sweet, sweet covered headlamps).
I won’t even *consider* a car for purchase if it does not have cruise control. Period.
A buddy and I went to the 2006 (I think) Chicago Auto Show. The PTs weren’t the hot new thing anymore, but we took turns sitting in the driver’s seat of one because we wanted to see what all the hullabaloo was about, all the “big on the inside” stuff. I’m 6 foot tall and 175 lbs. (How I miss that!) We were both annoyed by some part of the interior, maybe the belt retractor, hitting us on the shoulder. My friend was 6’2″” and maybe 250 lbs, and it was worse for him. This was an obvious negative for us both, who were both about to purchase cars. He ended up with an Escape and me a Taurus. To this day that weird flaw is all I think about when I see a PT, and yet I don’t recall hearing anyone ever mention it in discussions about this car.
Has anyone else experienced this? My friend and I are sort of “big guys” but not -that- big.
Did we just sit in a weird example in which something wasn’t assembled correctly? It looked normal enough.
Sidebar: We sat in an (oddly) unlocked 3-series bimmer, and it completely blocked ALL sounds of the busy crowd. Like sensory-deprivation-tank quiet. Very impressed by that.
Lost my next door neighbor that day. He was a NYC firefighter. We didn’t get along so well maybe since we both worked odd hours. Great thing about Sam was that he once organized a hockey league for the neighborhood youngsters. They played right on our quiet street. I remember well since this forced me to actually use my driveway. Was also very close also to a woman who was on the job as an EMS Operator that day. She told me later about being on the line with people on the upper floors. Very sad. Took courses at WTC myself while construction was still going on. Shopped the PT cruiser back in the day. Don’t see these anymore. Generally liked it. Dealer had a stick in stock for some reason. Less room on the floor behind the rear seat than my Chevette. That killed the deal.
Sunday morning after 9/11, the woman who I thought was the love of my life dumped me.
I remember listening to the 880 WCBS morning broadcast while I was in the shower with my suit steaming on the hook, because I was heading back to the high school for economics and finance, which was headquartered in the old Stern School of Business on West Broadway later that afternoon for a full intake into the department of education, and as I was heading out the door the report of a plane hitting the North Tower was announced on the air. I thought Cessna, or commuter plane, got in the car and began driving to Middletown to pick up the New Jersey Transit train into Hoboken, I was listening to WCBS in the car passing Monticello when the South Tower was hit, and parking in the lot at the New Jersey Transit railroad stop in Middletown for the last morning train to Hoboken when I heard the reporter outside the South Tower begin repeating oh my God oh my God oh my God and then she went off the air.
I turned around and drove back to Liberty, transfixed like all the rest of us, called Amanda later in the afternoon to ask her how she was doing. I had a classmate in the North Tower, and Rabbi Goldman’s daughter was working in the South Tower. They both survived.
I test drove a PT Cruiser, it was a nice car, but too small for my needs, I had a Newfoundland (dog) I was showing and there was simply not enough room for the dog and equipment, I ended up buying a Honda Element. Several years later I traded it in on a Honda Accord-much better.
9/11 started out like any other day, working at my desk, listening to the radio-then a report came over about an airplane crashing into one of the World Trade towers, I though it was an accident of some sort, then things went crazy on the radio. I went into the receptionist’s office, she kept a tv on, just in time to see a second airliner crash into the other tower. I watched in disbelief and thought of Pearl Harbor in 1941.
My patent’s generation went nuts over the PT. I don’t know many first-time owners who were not retired. My mother would visit her friends, and if they didn’t have a New Beetle, they had a PT. She would tell me excitedly about Shirley’s PT, or Ester’s PT, as though it was suddenly 1965 and her friends had new Mustangs.
Kudos to Chrysler on the PT phenomenae. It made Boomers and Silents feel young again!
Now, I see PTs in my kid’s HS parking lot. Not a desired car, but better than zero car. They’re fading away. Many grandparents are leaving their PT to their kids, and those kids are handing their kids Grampy’s PT.
Im not really a fan of the PT Cruiser it tries too hard to be what its not but they were popular but have all but disappeared now whatever it is that goes wrong infected nearly all of them.
I watched the 911 show on TV in Tassie it looked like a movie exaggerated explosions etc, then it was announced it was live and real
For a long time, a PT Cruiser was the only Mopar rentcar I’d accept without grumbling. My favourable impression of them was largely on account of the driving experience—a good seating position, good sightlines, thoughtfully-configured controls and displays, and the headlamps were unusually good for a Chrysler product. If I’d had to fix one, my view probably would’ve gone sour; they’re notoriously service-hostile.
When my mother-in-law gave up her driver license, the kids got her PT Cruiser. It was aged, but low mileage and great condition.
Our two teenage sons kept the car clean and polished, but otherwise thrashed the Hades out of the poor thing. They weren’t fond of the styling and always referred to it as the PT Loser. When the youngest went off to college, I sold the it.
Still looked great and seemed to run OK though I imagine the running gear probably had triple the normal weather that might be expected based on the odometer reading. Four years of teenage abuse can do that. Evidently the running gear design was fairly stout and I won the Chrysler assembly line quality lottery with that particular car as it never gave any trouble.
The radio station I worked for at the time had three vehicles used for remote broadcasts/events – a 2003 Ford Econoline short wheelbase with imitation mag wheels that we called the “JRZ Hot Wheels Van” as it had flames on the side, 2005 GMC Savana extended wheelbase with the smaller V8, and a 2002 PT Cruiser limited edition “Dream Cruiser”.
The PT was the vehicle we used the least, but it still saw use if we had multiple remotes at once. And the cargo capacity came in handy when someone took the keys to the Ford van I was supposed to drive to a Lakewood BlueClaws game – I managed to stuff the tent, speakers, table, and prizes in the PT and make it there on time from Manahawkin hauling ass up the Parkway.
In the fall of 2007, my 96 Cadillac Sedan Deville had a transmission failure, and the station let me use the PT to get around since I was using a dealer that advertised with us to repair the trans. I loved that car – it was easy to get in and out of, the leather seats were comfy even for my 6 foot 300 lb frame, AC ice cold, the premium RAZ stereo sounded great, and I didn’t mind the less than thrilling acceleration with the auto trans. I was kind of sad to give the PT back after a month with it. Parking it was a breeze in Princeton when I would make my weekly pilgrimage to PREX for oldies CD’s & albums.
As far as I know, the car is still being used by WJRZ all these years later….even if the trans did fail a week after I gave it back to the station.
Maybe it’s me?
The PT Cruiser was popular wit the older crowd. They were relatively small, easy to get in and out of for us older drivers (vs. a low car), and were easy to park and drive. They also were practical for hauling stuff. The quality of the materials inside the car was cheapened with the 2006 refresh. The PTs were also a pain to service. The engine is in a really tight space under the hood. I remember in 2010 or so when they were being discontinued that Sergio Marchione of Fiat Chrysler said they very profitable. By 2010, the uniqueness of the design has worn off and they were not looked upon fondly by many as new vehicles. Their practicality reminds me of my Kia Soul which today serves the same driver demographics. Older drivers, higher than cars, and practical, easy to drive vehicles.
My 50 =/- year old buddy bought one of these and still has it .
He had it pin striped by hand and some custom matching bolster pillows made up for it .
Then he took it to an exhaust shop and they made up a better sounding system .
Apparently the slush boxes in these were made of balsa wood, his failed and he couldn’t afford to get it fixed but didn’t want o sell it on after criss crossing America in t several times .
Eventually he had the tranny rebuilt and is still enjoying it .
He told me he cheaped out and used bargain brand ATF when he did the tranny service and the tranny died in a matter of days .
For a long time the local self service junkyards always had several rows of these in VGC condition, like 40 of them in rows, for months on end .
I still see them around Los Angeles and almost _all_ have the taillights dangling by the wires or held in place by tape…
What’s the deal there ? .
On 9/11 I was up early as usual, getting ready to go to a secret Desert junkyard with two buddies, the radio news said an aircraft had hit the trade towers, I knew that would be interesting to look at and flipped on the T.V. ~ they were showing a long shot of one tower burning and I noticed the second jet fly by in the back ground and thought “that’s too low altitude and close in” and a few moments later I watched it fly into the second tower .
I called my buddies and said ” ! turn on the T.V !”, I don’t think either did as they picked me up and we had a busy day out in the Desert, they didn’t seem concerned at all .
As mentioned, I knew this would be a real game changer .
-Nate