Gee! The G24

A sports car for Chrysler

At auto shows this week in Detroit and Los Angeles, and at a special preview in New York, Chrysler Corp. will show off its new, snappy, four-seat, low-slung G24 sports car. To Chrysler, the car is more than just another way to get around. Largely because of the G24, Chrysler, for the first time since 1978, will be recalling U.S. workers who have been on indefinite layoff.

Between now and the scheduled start of production in July, Chrysler will be pouring some $96 million into its assembly plant in Fenton, near St. Louis, in preparation for turning out G24s and other 1984 models. Two models of the G24, one bearing the Dodge Daytona nameplate and the other Chrysler's Laser, will go on sale in the fall.

Chrysler will increase its Fenton work force, used for building LeBarons, convertibles, Dodges and the successful K car, to as many as 4,300 people, from 2,600, and will also install some 45 welding robots. First crack at the jobs will go to 3,300 Chrysler workers on layoff from the plant. There was widespread relief in and around St. Louis, which has an unemployment rate of 11.1%. Said Missouri Governor Christopher Bond: "We have seen unemployment far too high, far too long." Sighed Richard Burton, president of United Auto Workers Local 136 in Fenton: "Good news has been a long time coming for Chrysler workers." Or for auto workers in general, some 268,000 of whom are currently on indefinite layoff.

To be priced between $10,000 and $14,000, the G24 will be the first U.S.-built, front-wheel-drive sports car, with a turbocharged four-cylinder engine. So excited is Chrysler Chairman Lee lacocca that he is investing $150 million to make the car, more than 10% of Chrysler's 1984 development capital.

The G24 is regarded as Chrysler's first genuine sports car, with handling worthy of the designation. In aerodynamic design alone, Motor Trend magazine says, the car is "better than anything Chrysler has ever done."

The company is aiming the G24 at a less depressed segment of the car market: relatively affluent buyers who have a taste for speed and dash and might be customers for GM's Camaro or Firebird, or Toyota's Celica. In Motor Trend's tests, the G24 hit 60 m.p.h. in 8.22 sec., close to the industry's performance leader, Ford's 302 HO Mustang GT. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.