Almost no info exists on the actual number of Caliber SRT4s out there. Despite repeated questioning, Chrysler officially remains silent on the subject.
The following is a list of tidbits that might provide clues
The much-circulated Chrysler Sweden email
In an email sent to Chrysler sweden, one owner was given quite surprising total production numbers of 482 for 2008 and 222 for 2009 for a total of 704 vehicles.
By now, these numbers are clearly miss-calculated. Perhaps Chrysler Sweden was given Europe numbers only, which would make sense given our current information.
Other misleading information
In an allpar.com article, they wrote
The Caliber SRT4 was apparently dropped at the end of the 2009 model year after low sales - fewer than 1,000 units sold in 2008 and 2009 combined, a much lower figure than the Neon SRT4, which sold 25,000 units over three years.
This information, too, is wrong and doesn’t match up any information we have. Perhaps they were based on the Chrysler Sweden email.
Tangible information
At long last, we received interesting, and above all tangible, information. We were sent by someone, information acquired by a manager at Federal Mogul, a parts manufacturer for many car brands. This spreadsheet contains build numbers of specific engines for various applications across a wide range of manufacturers. For the Gema i4 Turbo Compressed engine used in the Caliber SRT4, total engine productions are listed as 2007: 8,172 2008: 2,550 2009: 376 for a total
of 11,098 engines. This includes both actual car production and warrantee & repair overstocks.
Meanwhile, a Belvedere plant worker relayed us some information he got from a production schedule manager at detroit (which has been in the company for 20+ years). Here’s what this Belvedere plant worker had to say about the info he relayed to us and the 11,098 engines produced from our previous source:
«All I can tell ya is my center manager contacted the person in detroit who is in charge of production programming and sched. Thats where the numbers came from. I cant say for certain but I would be shocked if we built 11k of these. They were late coming to market in 08 and we were shut down for months in 09 with the bankruptcy. I dont think there is any way we built more in 09 than in 08. Volume was nowhere near what they were hoping for. I think in the end you will probably find these numbers to be pretty close but i cant say they are right on. Just relaying the info given to me.
One problem with chrysler these days is so many people have left it can be really hard to get info on stuff like this but seeing my center manager has been at Belvedere for 24 years i would think he would know who to contact. I know for certain we would only run around 5 a shift of the CSRT, and that would not be everyday. Some days we wouldn't run any.»
According to the production & schedule manager in detroit, the actual number of Caliber SRT4 produced are
2008: 4586
2009: 976
for a total of 5,562 vehicles, total.
This total is right along the lines of total CSRT4 VINs in our Chrysler database files, which puts the total of cars between 5,000 and 6,000 cars. This database information is still being sorted out for VIN & car color match but our last update of 4,800+ cars show we’ll be crossing the 5,000 cars marker pretty soon.
Last reflexions
It is now clear that the Chrysler Sweden message is in error or that the researched numbers were wrong when reported back to Chrysler Sweden.
Regardless as how we see it, it looks as though this car is, indeed, quite rare.
But the owners of Dodge Caliber SRT4s want more than allusions. We are dedicated fans of that great SRT platform and we want Chrysler and Fiat to recognize the special status and exclusivity of this car, by supplying build sequence certificates, as they do for other specialty limited series cars like Plum Crazy Chargers.
Contributors to the list
This list is a consolidated effort of many people around the web. Be it individual registrants or people that managed to find lists (big and small) in various markets around the world.
In particular, brucesrt21 from the Red forum, was kind enough to share his list wich he had started in parallel to my own, oblivious as I was that such an endeavour was taking place. He has since contributed a number of cars found on the market (about a third of the list at the time of this writing).
The largest contribution to date is from ResumeSpeed, who exploded our numbers! A regular on building this kind of car list information for other models, ResumeSpeed came across some CSRT4 data right out of production data for Chrysler. His lists not only includes VINs which we hadn’t seen before, it also contains Build Dates (more precise than the actual sticker on your door!), Color and original location of these cars, further adding to the registry’s value.
Given the current 4000+ cars on the list, including pre-production models, it’s clear and undeniable that the Chrysler Sweden numbers were grossly miscalculated.
The current list consists of
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-Car forum users-contributed information compiled by dedicated individuals
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-Long and tedious compilation of web searches
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-Chrysler database information on CSRT4 that churned up while other car lists were researched.
Thank you all for helping!
Have useful info? EMAIL ME!
