Chrysler makes fantastic plastic car
By Hugh Hunston
ANY similarity between Chrysler's radical CCV (Composite Concept Vehicle) and Citroen's much-loved 2CV is purely intentional.
In the metal, or rather the pale eggshell-blue thermoplastic, the chubby, cheeky Chrysler, with its squat stance, pronounced wheel arches and roll-back canvas roof, has more than a trace of VW Beetle about it.
But the air-cooled clatter and whir reverberating through a Belgian forest earlier this month provided an evocative echo of the French classic.
The CCV's distinctive sound is generated by a 19kW 800cc V2 power unit, developed by Wisconsin lawn mower engine maker Briggs & Stratton.
It's a world away from the more familiar V6 and V8 Voyagers and Jeep Grand Cherokees which carry Chrysler's logo.
CCV's original rationale is indeed rooted in another world -- the Third World -- although the global automotive industry prefers to speak of "emerging nations".
Until recently, Chrysler's rounded baby was known as the China Car, testimony to an ambitious plan to persuade Beijing that this cheap to produce yet rugged and easy to maintain runabout could fill the gap between motorbikes and beaten-up western hand-me- downs.
Mass motorization is the industry buzzword and the China Car, according to Chrysler's vice president Francois Castaing, could be the environmentally acceptable vehicle for that process.
Lateral-thinking Castaing, formerly with Renault, believes that the CCV could fill an automotive vacuum in emerging economies, just as the Beetle, 2CV, Morris Minor, Fiat Topolino and Renault 4 did in Europe after the war.
At 550 kilograms, CCV is half the weight of Chrysler's Mondeo- sized Neon, averages 50mpg and could be produced for a market price of about US$6,000.
Patience is a prerequisite in negotiations with the Chinese authorities, but Castaing remains cautiously optimistic.
"The Chinese are beginning to understand," he says.
"It is a true people's car, for the 80 percent of Chinese who live in farmlands, who ride mopeds and drive tractors."
Whatever the outcome of that ongoing lobbying process, Chrysler is also educating the media on both sides of the Atlantic about a vehicle which simultaneously threatens to break an automotive industry mold and, by dint of its lightweight construction technology, create a highly significant new one.
For a virtually totally recyclable car it is appropriate that inspiration for the body shell molding process came from production of industrial rubbish containers.
The material involved is similar to that used in disposable drinks bottles.
A massive injection molding system exerts a 9,000-tonne force to create the shell from four composite plastic parts.
These consist of respective pairs of left and right inner and outer panels which substitute for no less than 80 stamped and welded steel parts in a conventional car body.
As a rule of thumb, the CCV's 1,100 component parts equate to 4,000 on a Neon.
These machines are at the heart of a car assembly plant which would occupy less than one-fifth of the equivalent factory space required to build the Neon in Illinois.
CCV eliminates not only the giant heavy-metal press shop but also the expensive paint shop because the mat body hue is dictated by self-colored plastic.
In a curious reversal of Henry Ford's famous dictum, you can have any color you want, as long as it's not black; that absorbs too much heat in sunshine.
Tom Moore, general manager of the corporation's Liberty and Technical Affairs division, did not give details of equivalent workforce savings.
The company claims this revolutionary operation would be incremental if established overseas, but concedes that CCV takes 6.5 hours to build, more than three times longer than the Neon.
Chrysler is not concealing an industrial agenda with CCV, but says that lessons learned from the new systems could change the way it makes vehicles, even if the proving ground is in China or India.
-- The Daily Telegraph