The Rod Warrior

DETROIT — It evolved from an “idea fair” held in May 1990 at Chrysler’s Pacifica Design studio in Carlsbad. The brainstorming session produced such wacky notions as an edible car and a disposable vehicle.

But the sketch that caught the fancy of Chrysler’s top brass was a retro-styled, wedge-shaped roadster that evokes the spirit of a 1930s highboy hot rod.

Seven years later, Chrysler’s interpretation of a hot rod is about to hit America’s roads. The Prowler, a head-turning, purple-draped celebration of individualism and rebelliousness, is heading for showrooms this month.

The low-slung vehicle, which carries a low rumble and a $39,000 sticker price, displays the brash Chrysler culture that has made it Detroit’s unquestioned style and product trendsetter.

“It’s so over the top, it will get a lot of attention,” said consultant George Peterson, president of AutoPacific Group in Santa Ana.

The Prowler--the first vehicle made exclusively for Chrysler’s Plymouth division since the 1969 Barracuda--is also meant to draw attention to the almost-forgotten Plymouth nameplate, whose death was being rumored just a few years back.

The two-seater also doubles as a test bed of new materials and manufacturing technologies. For instance, the Prowler is the first U.S.-made production car with an all-aluminum frame and body structure.

Like the muscle-bound Dodge Viper sports car, the Prowler provides a chance for Chrysler to learn important lessons on low-cost manufacturing of a low-volume, niche vehicle. There will be only 2,000 produced this year and 5,000 in following years once the craft-like assembly line in inner-city Detroit reaches full speed.

A factory-made hot rod is something of a contradiction in terms, because by definition a hot rod is a production car that has been modified to enhance performance and appearance to reflect the owner’s personal taste.

Every Prowler that comes off the line will look exactly alike. Each will have the same wide stance, the same fold-down ragtop, the same metallic purple paint job, the same 3.5-liter V-6 engine.

Yet even in the hot-rod community, the Prowler has been welcomed as a good imitation, or more to the point, as a vehicle that captures the spirit and pays homage to the rich hot-rodding subculture.

“We accept the Prowler not as a hot rod but as a tribute to the hot rod,” said Pat Ganahl, editor of Rodder’s Journal.

Gray Baskerville, senior editor of Hot Rod magazine, gushed: “It’s tingling. It’s built for a guy and gal who like to high-tail it up to Carmel and take Highway 1 to get there.”

The roots of the hot rod--most likely slang shorthand for “hot roadster”--date to the 1920s, when young men who liked to tinker with cars raced at county fairs. Southern California was ideal, with the alkaline, dry lake beds of the high desert northeast of Los Angeles serving as a venue for weekend races of chopped coupes stripped of fenders and running boards.

The golden age emerged after World War II, as returning servicemen channeled their energy into souped-up street rods and showed them off at drive-in restaurants. There was a downside as well--illegal and often-deadly street drag racing.

Chrysler engines became a favorite of the hot-rod set. The company’s V-8 engines used hemispherical cylinder heads, a design that created robust power. As the muscle-car era dawned in the 1960s, the hemi engine became the hot-rod engine of choice.

The fact that the Prowler does not have a V-8 engine is a sore point among some hot rodders.

“I’ve never heard of a decent street rod with a V-6 in it,” said George Swift, a hot-rod enthusiast from Riverside.

Others say Chrysler’s cookie-cutter approach has little appeal to true aficionados. They dismiss the Prowler as an expensive toy for those who want the hot-rod image without breaking a sweat. It is a refined roadster with dual air bags, power windows, air conditioning and an Autostick feature that allows the vehicle to be driven in either automatic or manual mode.

Craig Love, Prowler chief engineer, said the vehicle uses the same V-6 engine as Chrysler’s LH sedans because it can deliver as much power and torque as many V-8s for a much lower price. It reaches 60 miles per hour in about eight seconds.

“This is not trying to be a Viper, it’s just trying to be a fun car,” he said. (The Viper uses a V-10 engine.)

Besides, hot rodders are welcome to change the Prowler as they see fit. Indeed, some are already planning to do so.

George Meadors, president of the Goodguys Rod and Custom Assn. in Alamo, Calif., has ordered a Prowler and plans to immediately tear off the fenders and drop in a more powerful engine.

“The Prowler may not have a hemi and go a quarter of a mile in six seconds, but it’s way cool and looks like a dad-gum hot rod,” he said. “Any dyed-in-the wool hot rodder will give it his own touches.”

Chrysler may have most of the hot-rod set on its side, but a more important task is to have Prowler breathe fresh life into Plymouth, a once-proud brand that is now an afterthought to most car buyers.

In its muscle-car heyday in the early 1970s, Plymouth sold as many as 750,000 cars a year. Its popularity dipped as it came to be seen solely as a practical, inexpensive nameplate and attracted mostly older customers. With hot-selling trucks and sport-utility vehicles reserved for Chrysler’s Dodge and Jeep divisions, rumors of Plymouth’s death circulated routinely.

But Chrysler has been trying to burnish Plymouth’s youthful appeal, updating its lineup with the Neon and Breeze sedans. It managed to sell 324,000 vehicles last year, up nearly 10% from the previous year.

The company has gotten more than 100,000 inquiries about the Prowler from consumers. Don Kott, owner of Don Kott Chrysler-Plymouth in Carson, has been promised only one Prowler for now, though he would like half a dozen. The Prowler will be given only to dealers with the highest customer-satisfaction levels and in key markets like Southern California.

“We aren’t looking at Prowler as a profit opportunity but as a traffic producer,” Kott said.

“The Prowler may not have a hemi and go a quarter of a mile in six seconds, but it’s way cool and looks like a dad-gum hot rod,” he said. “Any dyed-in-the wool hot rodder will give it his own touches.”