Mopar Presents Its 2013 SEMA Show Lineup

Fiat and Chrysler’s in-house tuner Mopar will bring twenty customized vehicles at the upcoming SEMA Show in Las Vegas from Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Ram, SRT and Fiat brands. Here are some of the Mopar-modified 2013 Chrysler Group SEMA display vehicles.

The Ram Sun Chaser show truck is a leisure vehicle for surfing fans that even includes a shower. Based on the Ram 1500 Quad Cab, the vehicle features Vibrance Orange Blast, with two-tone Brilliant Black paint, a unique concept Mopar roof rack, dubbed the “surf rack,” and two adjustable support rails housed within the tracks of the truck’s bed, for accommodating a long surfboard. Hooks on the side of the rails can also carry up to four boards.

The concept’s exclusive RamBox bed-side storage features a concept water tank equipped with a hose and a portable shower head, forming a makeshift shower kit that may be clipped on to the rack for a quick rinse. The shower can be used to wash off salt water or seaweed. The Ram Sun Chaser rides on unique 17 x 8-inch beadlock wheels with color-keyed rings.

The Fiat 500L Adventurer features modifications that transform the five-seater by giving it a tough, rugged appearance. The exterior is enhanced with Bright White body paint, two-tone accent wheel flares and rockers painted in Satin Black. The roof is painted Vibrance Bright Orange and features Mopar roof rails and a large roof basket. The vehicle sits on 18 x 7.5-inch custom concept wheels embellished with FIAT logo center caps.

Other visual enhancements are the custom 500L graphics on the door panels, orange mirror caps, tinted taillights, tinted chrome exhaust tips, molded splash guards, and a chrome FIAT logo ring. On the inside, black perforated suede Katzkin seats and pearl leather seatbacks are the highlights. The interior also features a two-tone instrument panel with a white leather insert and various Mopar accessories.

The Jeep Cherokee Trail Carver is a vehicle with capabilities to handle the rugged off-road. It uses the Trailhawk 4x4 package powered by a 3.2-liter V6 engine as a starting point. The exterior is colored in Auburn Pearl paint, with low-gloss black and Granite Crystal with low-gloss clear touches.

The SUV features unique Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk hood and roof topographical graphics bordered in Crush Orange, with matching orange tow hooks. The top of the vehicle sports a concept roof basket design fitted with a front wind deflector. The off-road character of the vehicle is underlined by the aggressive tires and the rock rails.

The interior has Katzkin Amaretto leather seats, with colored leather in the center, leather wrapping on the center console, storage door and armrest, and matching color stitching on the seats.

Mopar will also display a 2014 Chrysler 300S featuring a sinister look thanks to the Phantom Black Tri-coat paint, darkened headlights and 13-bar black “Gotham” grille surround. The car also has lowering kit and rides on 20x8-inch wheels from the Chrysler 300C John Varvatos Limited Edition. At the rear, a black SRT spoiler and smoked taillights complete the exterior changes.

The interior features luxurious touches like the Katzkin “Bisque” leather on the seats and door bolster inserts.

By Dan Mihalascu

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Jeep Frees First 2014 Cherokee SUV Spot

The Chrysler Group had been holding back on, well, just about everything concerning the all-new and all-important for the Jeep brand 2014 Cherokee SUV until it ironed out all the problems, which it did last week, when it finally began shipping the first examples to dealers across the country.

Now it's time to kick off the marketing and advertising aspect of the 2014 Cherokee launch starting with an extended, 60-seconds long spot dubbed “Built Free” across television and online networks.

The spot, which is set to Bob Dylan's 1962 "Motherless Children", has a certain nostalgic tone to it, something that in some ways, stands in contrast to the new Cherokee's adventurous styling tone that breaks with tradition.

“The return of the Cherokee nameplate to the Jeep brand brings with it the opportunity for consumers to experience an exciting vehicle that will move the midsize SUV segment forward,” stated Mike Manley, President and CEO of Jeep.

The campaign won't be limited to this spot as it will also target print media with a number of monthly magazines and daily newspapers, as well as an exclusive in-theater ad to be released on November 29 in conjunction with the upcoming film, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” with Ben Stiller.

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Euro NCAP Crashes Jeep Cherokee, Mercedes CLA, Suzuki SX4 and Peugeot 2008

The latest roundup of cars put to the test by Euro NCAP succeeded in achieving the maximum possible five-star score. Jeep’s Cherokee, the Mercedes CLA, Suzuki SX4 and Peugeot 2008 all impressed, though the European crash safety authority doesn’t currently have an equivalent to the small overlap test, the one that’s been troublesome for so many apparently safe cars.

But regardless, at least the stability control test is not only relevant for testing the ESC, but also for seeing if a vehicle’s chassis is up to scratch – the Opel Adam from the previous batch of cars showed it had a big tendency to understeer. Here, out of all four cars tested, the Suzuki seemed to have the straightest trajectory, and it runs a bit wide with the electronics turned off…

No other notable occurrences to report on, aside from the fact that for the Peugeot 2008, much of the crash data was taken from the 208 supermini on which it’s based – it shares its basic structure. It even suffers from the same high chance of giving passengers whiplash injuries in rear impacts, as the seats and headrests are not as efficient at culling this as they could be.

Check out the all six videos posted below; there are two for each car, bar the Peugeot, which doesn’t get any.

By Andrei Nedelea

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Jeep Finally Begins to Ship 2014 Cherokee to Dealers

After more delays than Chrysler would care to admit, the company has started to call in car haulers to transport the new 2014 Jeep Cherokee SUV from the firm's Toledo, Ohio, assembly complex to dealers across the United States, according to Autonews. Unnamed sources from within the company said that the first examples should arrive over the next 10 days.

The publication said that during the two months that Chrysler started production of the cars, and while its engineers were working on the problems that popped up, it built around 23,000 Cherokees, which is double the number mentioned in another recent report.

Nevertheless, customers have been flocking Jeep stores asking for the new Cherokee, according to dealers like Josh Towbin, co-owner of Las Vegas-based Towbin Automotive, who said: "Demand has been good. We've been asked every single day when it's going to arrive, and we're going to take every one we can get."

From what we understand (since Chrysler hasn't really been open about it), the biggest problem that caused the delay in the 2014 Cherokee's launch was an issue with the new nine-speed automatic transmission's software.

Update: Chrysler officially confirmed the news with a short statement saying, "2014 Jeep Cherokees began arriving at dealerships today".

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