PT Grill kits

How hard is it to install the beltline and chrome grill kits on the PT
Cruisers?

Is this something that can be done as a DIY project? Any tips?

JaKe

 

If it is a direct bolt-on kit then yes it is very easy to DIY. Basically
all you have to do is unbolt the old one and then bolt the new one in.

 

I've seen tons of PTs with bolt-on dresser kits running around lately.
PT clubs abound out here, and I can always see them on the road on the
weekends on outings. Ditto on the dresser kits for the 300Cs, which
seem to have become a ghetto favorite with those ridiculous baby buggy
wheels...unfortunately. Nice car all around, but the greenhouse is a
LITTLE small, sort of a like a chopped '49 Merc! Anyone in here have
a 300C to report on?

 

I think there is some sort of PT group around me also. seen them a few
times all parked in a parking lot showing off there cars.

 

I don't remember any new US car having such a big "club" following in
many, many years. I remember there were lots of muscle car clubs back
in the '60s-early '70s (we had a local RoadRunner/GTX club with 55
members back then, and a Mustang club with over 150) but after that
era ended, marque-based car clubs went "retro," with lots of '57 Chevy
clubs and that sort of thing. The only big "club cars" of late,
before the PT caught on, were the "rice racers" with their VTEC Hondas
(and tons of posuers.) DaimlerChrysler seems to have a real following
with the PT...hope they don't screw it up like King Henry Ford II
screwed up the Mustang in '71! If anyone's to blame for the bloated,
ineffective management structure at Ford these days, it'd be "Henry
the Drunk." I don't think Billy Boy can shake that problem, either,
as Ford continues to roll headlong into the dumpster, as if tailgating
a nearly dead GM.

If Lee Iacocca did one thing extremely right during his years at
Chrysler, it was defying the board and insisting on building the
state-of-the-art Belvidere Design Center. That's how DC can rush new,
popular models to market so much faster than Ford or GM, and Lee knew
that back then. GM, stuck in essentially the same timeline structure
they had when Sloan was running things, can't get the new
"retro-Camaro" to market fast enough, and Ford is saturating that
market now with their "retro-Mustang," one of the only profitable cars
they have. By the time Wagoner gets GM off its fat ass to finally
debut the Camaro, it may be too late to meet the market with any
degree of success except for Chevy fans...who are dwindling.

GM's GTO had the potential to be a club fave, but they screwed that
package up bigtime. The platform for that car, the Holden Monaro from
Australia, is a big hit in Oz and New Zealand, where Monaro clubs
abound similar to PT Cruiser clubs here. But, in typical GM fashion,
GM tried to "badge engineer" it into the US market and failed
miserably. Another example of GM design and marketing incompetence:
The Pontiac Aztek/Buick Rendevouz disaster. If I were a GM mid-level
guy seeing that first Aztek roll off the line, I would have
immeidately had bad visions of the '59 Cadillac and thought, "Oh
no...what have we DONE here???" GM tried to put lipstick on that pig
by disguising it as the "Buick Rendevous," but the public was already
savvy to the move, and it too failed.

Going back into the '80s, GM had a hit with the interesting Pontiac
Fiero (there were a few Fiero clubs sprouting out here and there) and
then, after a fuel line fire problem hit the news, instead of fixing
the problem and continuing, they killed the car! That decision was
from GM's worst-ever top brass, Roger Smith, probably one of them most
incompetent US CEOs (along with Bob Allen, who tanked AT&T) to ever
live...typical of many CEOs who comes up through the "beancounter" end
of the business.

 

BEWARE- "DESERTBOB" is a troll that actually knows NOTHING about
Mopars- he drives an aging rotted Honda car from the 1970's- his tech
advice is all lies and BS

 

I remember when the Fiero was big news mainly due to its plastic body
panels mid mount engine. But alas it turned out to be really
underpowered - a TR-7 wannabe.

Lately GM's new retro styled HHR looks like a PT on steroids. Butt
ugly IMHO.

JaKe

 

The 2M4 with the "Iron Duke" four, yes. With the 60° Chevy V6, it was
a rocket.

Yes...badly done. They tried to adapt the grille from the '48 Chevy
Fleetmaster and failed. Sales are slow, and are mainly to
Chevrolet/GM loyalists. When marketed directly againts the PT, it
loses.

 

I thought that it was supposed to be the 49 Chevy/GMC truck grill?
The cars had variations on the 42 grill.

.. Sales are slow, and are mainly to

From what I have read, it is the only GM model that is attracting any
sales attention.

When marketed directly againts the PT, it

I wish that they would come up with a Coupe version of the PT Cruiser
and base it on the 46-48 Chrysler line. I have a 1940 Royal, and it
uses the older late '30's small side window and extra long trunk.

 

The 1948 Chevy truck started the "louvered square" grille that lasted
into '53, that didn't have the curvature of the HHR's "retro" grille.
Maybe we're talking two different vehicles. GM has one running around
now that is a PT Cruiser "knock off" that has a "frowning" grille
opening with horizontal bars, very reminiscent of the '48
Chevy...hardly a memorable vehicle, to say the least. The little
pickup has a "retro" kind of grille that doesn't really resemble much
of anything. Sales of those seem slow, as well.

....which isn't good. Right now, Chevy dealers literally have tons of
unsold Suburpans, trucks and other gas guzzlers that they can't even
sell at deep discount. My neighbor just picked up a brand new Tahoe
for wholesale...from a dealer! From what he says, they were dying to
get rid of it, and he was the only "up" on the store floor for over
four hours, with all the foot traffic going to the parts department.
Ditto the unsuccessful downsized "Impaler," which isn't moving at all.
The HHR is drawing some floor traffic, but sales in comparison to the
PT are dismal, at best. I've only seen two HHRs on the road thus far,
but scads of new PTs. My local Chevy versus Chrsyler/Dodge/Jeep
dealers tell the tale...the Chevy dealer is a ghost town, the Chrysler
store is teeming with foot traffic. I even saw a Prowler on the road
the other day....wow! An impractical car, perhaps, but what an
eye-catcher!

At this rate, it wouldn't surprise me to see DaimlerChrysler pass Ford
as the #2 of the "Big 3." Ford is in dire straits, as earlier
mentioned. After some initial sales (mostly to women, according to JD
Power), the 500 appears to be a dead duck. I drove one...nice enough
car, but somehow they managed to take a big sedan and make it look
like an overinflated Focus. They screwed the Focus up as well, by
making the styling less "edgy." The original Focus ZX3 was a hot
seller, but this year's sedan version is....ho hum. Focus also got a
really lousy reliability reputation in its first year, thanks to
bumbling by Nassar on engineering issues.

One also has to remember that despite the "spin" from our
addled-brained president and his neocon puppeteers, the US economy is
a shambles, with $217 million a DAY being gobbled up by Iraq...and
that comes off the TOP of the Treasury, because, to hide the expense,
the Bushies are paying for his little war adventure with "off budget"
approvals. It's no wonder Bernanke has to raise overnight
rates...Bush is robbing Treasury blind! In reality, we're in a
skyrocketing deficit mode, and whenever that happens, the people down
at the bottom...car buyers...suffer a lot. Wages are DOWN 8% for the
first time since the Great Depression, while inflation keeps stumbling
along at a real adjusted pace of about 1.5% per annum. Do the
math...doesn't leave a lot of bucks for John Q. Public to buy a new
car, now, does it? Those that do are shopping for value, and the Japs
now have the corner on that reputation, deserved or not. What DC is
managing to do is introduce new models to meet the market faster than
either Ford or GM (thanks again to Lee Iacocca) and thus, they get
there first. Ford's only selling ONE car now...the retro Mustang, and
that's a flaky market segment, at best.

Sort of a "turret top" version of the PT...sounds interesting! Seems,
though, that no one wants a vehicle with a "trunk" anymore.

 

don't listen to DeserTBob- his full time car is a 1979 Honda !

 

Chrysler always used to be the #2 manufacturer behind GM, as they were
the only ones to have full lines of cars: Plymouth/Chevy,
Dodge/Pontiac/Olds, DeSoto/Olds/Buick, Chrysler/Buick/Cadillac,
Imperial/Cadillac/LaSalle. Ford only had itself, and Lincoln until
they brought in the Mercury in 39.

the 500 appears to be a dead duck. I drove one...nice enough

 

True, but Ford pulled around Chrysler after WW II, especially with the
'49 Fords and Mercs, which were fantastic sellers due to their styling
and various features. What was funny was that the old, tired 239"
flattie in the Ford produced the same BHP as the more modern 6, and on
more fuel! However, Ford's slab sided styling (actually first used by
Kaiser-Fraser in 1947) was an instant hit in comparison to GM's fairly
rotund offerings, save for the '48 Cadillac with it's P-38 fins, which
became legendary.

Chrysler's products were pretty badly designed styling-wise in that
era, until Virg Exner sort of stood Chrysler's styling department on
its head in '53 for the '55 models. Even with "school teacher"
styling in the early '50s, though, Chrysler was on the cutting edge of
technical development, and Exner's new shapes made it all sell again.
Once the jazzy new models came out, along with those fabulous engines
and Torqueflite, Ford had to start worrying. After some serious
mismanagement in the '70s, Lee Iacocca, who had a death wish of "King
Henry II" anyway, took control and accellerated Chrysler toward the #2
spot again and they haven't backed off yet. Looking at Ford's lousy
product line this year, and the latest sales figures, I'd say it's a
good bet that DC will pass Ford again possibly in the '07 model year.

 

They made a V-6 Fiero that was very powerful.

The new GTO is a powerhouse, and the Solstice is scheduled to get a 390
HP engine in upcoming years.

 

I had a 49 Windsor sedan, FluidDrive and all the options, nice car,
room for 8 people on those big old seats!

and Exner's new shapes made it all sell again.

 

Chryslers and De Sotos were THE taxi cab choice in those years...huge
seating areas, typical Chrysler dependability and better engineering
than arch-competitor Checker. Chrysler held that industry pretty much
to itself until the modern Checker A8 "Marathon" showed up around '56,
with its Continental Red Seal 6 and Borg-Warner automatic. I don't
think any tougher car was ever built.

The last in-service Checker cab was retired in New York City only a
couple of years ago due to advanced age...it didn't pass the Taxi
Commission's inspection, but it managed to put in something like 28
years' service in NYC taxi service, a record, and it still running.
Checker's still in business, doing subcontract metal stamping work for
the Big 3 and the Japanese "foreign" factories. The A8 was the last
hurrah for Continental in terms of automotive engines went. The last
Checkers with Continentals came out in '64, IIRC.

In college, I drove for a regional bus carrier that had a few
Marathons and one Aerobus in its fleet for airport service and
shuttles. The 11 passenger Aerobus was quite a tank! It had the
Continental/Borg-Warner powertrain which was extremely durable, if
nothing else. The B-W tranny was the very same used by AMC until they
switched over to Torqueflites, which was actually the beginning of the
AMC/Chrysler merger, as AMC became increasingly dependent upon
Chrysler as a supplier.

 

Checkers were great cars. Here in South Florida, there are at least
three checkers, two sedans, one with a padded roof and a wagon.