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Got $138,000 -- or a little less -- to spare? Salt Lake City car expo has a deal for you
By Wade Denniston
The Chrysler PT Cruiser, a 1940s retro sedan, goes on sale this spring. It drew a crowd at Salt Lake City that appreciated its price ($20,000) and its options. / Photo by Chrysler What kind of car does the future have in store for you? How about a Ferrari 360 Modena which can reach a top speed of 183 mph and can go from zero to 60 in 4.4 seconds? The car also has a nice price tag of $138,225. What about the popular 2000 Volkswagen Beetle GLS Turbo, equipped with a sun roof? The cost for this car is only $20,400. Not into cars? Then let's try a truck on for size. You could take home a Limited Edition Toyota Tundra 4X4 for $31,104, which comes with a V-8 engine. Whatever your taste in automobiles, the Utah International Auto Expo, Friday through Monday at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, had hundreds of the newest cars, trucks, minivans, sport-utility vehicles, and concept cars, which give people a sense of what autos may look like in the future. "This auto show is designed to create a friendly, no-pressure arena for consumers to inspect and compare a variety of new model vehicles all under one roof, in a non-selling environment," this year's auto show Chairman Kirk Schneider told The Salt Lake Tribune before the show. The vehicles that seemingly took the most precedence were the million-dollar exotic automobiles, such as the Ferrari. The 360 Modena is Ferrari's first all-aluminum 3.6-liter, 400-horsepower V-8 sports car. The Lamborghini Diablo also received its fair share of attention, and deservedly so. The Diablo Roadster ($290,000) features a removable hard top, four-wheel drive and a 5.7-liter, 530-horsepower V-12 engine that races to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds. The roadster's top speed reaches 208.3 mph. On a more sensible level, with more of a realistic price, Chrysler's all-new 2001 PT Cruiser may just be the hottest car of the future for families, or just one individual, hence the PT (Personal Transportation) in the name. The cruiser, which will go on sale this spring, is a '40s retro sedan with a 2.4-liter, four-cylinder engine. At this year's expo, the dark blue PT Cruiser was surrounded by many people, who all seemed to be satisfied with the price of the automobile (under $20,000 fully loaded). "The PT is going to be scarce," Tom Gale, executive vice president in charge of product development and design for DaimlerChrysler, told The Chicago Tribune. "We have capacity to build 180,000 PT Cruisers at our plant in Mexico, but will build only 120,000 during first-year startup. "We're going to have to look at expansion." While BMW, Kia and Porsche decided not to participate in this year's show, there still were vehicles from 34 domestic and import manufacturers on display.
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Archived Months:
September
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