Northwest Cruisers PT Club

News Items About PT Cruisers or Our Club

Check out our newly added car care page containing tips and suggestions in caring for your Cruiser.

    September 14, 2010:  The River Rendezvous 2010 Car Show is history, and it was a FANTASTIC SUCCESS! We met at Red Lion Templin's Resort on Friday at noon to start setting up for the weekend. As the day progressed more and more PTs arrived, culminating with a caravan of 12 cars from Yaki-Vegas and the Tri-Cites arriving about 2:30. Many from the Alberta PT Cruiser Club had arrived the night before, along with our winner of Longest Distance travelled (1475 miles) from the Southern Arizona PT Cruiser and Prowler Club. That evening we caravanned as a group over to the Hot Rod Café in Post Falls, and had a great dinner. The restaurant had us seated and served immediately and we were on our way after only 1 hour, and that was for a group of over 50 people! We then traveled back to Templin's where we assembled in a reserved parking area to decorate our cars for the night glow event. The people from YakiVegas take the night glow very seriously, since many of them had so many lights on their cars I am sure they could be seen from outer space! After the night glow some members went to the bed early, while others wound down by visiting the Lounge at Templin's for a night cap.

    Bright and early on Saturday morning our club met at the east lawn area to set up and get ready for the car show. We assembled the club tent, along with numerous tables, and started checking in the participants to the car show. Ken Leight had made arrangements to have a newspaper article run on Friday in the Coeur d’Alene newspaper detailing our car show, along with a picture of a PT to attract attention. We had great response from that article with several people entering their PT Cruisers in the ‘Open Division’ in our car show, with more attending to see what a PT Cruiser car show looked like. I had a telephone call Sunday from someone who attended the show and was interested in joining our club as a result of the article and favorable impression of the car show and of our friendly members.

    Everyone who attended the car show commented on the beautiful grass location overlooking the Spokane River and the mountains of North Idaho. Our basket raffle and silent auction items attracted much attention and many tickets were purchased for the baskets. We had a table set up to display (and sell) our River Rendezvous event t-shirts, along with our club cookbook. The car show was a HUGE SUCCESS and it was difficult choosing the best entrant in each category since there were MANY great choices to pick from.

    After the morning show and shine we packed up our tent and tables and left for lunch. After lunch everyone had a choice of going on the River Cruise up the Spokane River or on a drive to Lake Coeur d’Alene to Higgins Point and returning on the north side of the Spokane River to Templin's. Many took the River Cruise and said they enjoyed it because it was a relaxing way to wind down after the car show. I went on the drive to Lake Coeur d’Alene, which was organized and led by Rocky Gibbs, and of the 19 cars travelling on the road trip, 15 were visitors to our car show. It was a very relaxing and informative drive, with a sunny day and a temperature of 70 degrees. Everyone was impressed with Lake Coeur d’Alene and how beautiful the scenery was all along the drive. A BIG thank you to Rocky Gibbs for taking the time to chart this course and make it a huge success. ALL of the feedback I received about the drive was very positive and everyone who did the drive was very impressed by the scenery and by the great organization and execution. No one was left behind, no one got lost and everyone had a great time. By the way, Rocky had originally charted a longer drive through Harrison, Idaho along Lake Coeur d’Alene returning via Rose Lake, but that would have taken 3 hours, and we thought that might be too long, since many attending the show had travelled a long distance to get here and might not want to drive a long tour. We decided we might schedule the longer drive as a club activity in October and making a day of it for our club. I have driven that route from Wolf Lodge to Harrison and it is a beautiful drive along Lake Coeur d’Alene. A big thank you goes out to those members of our club who stayed behind to ‘babysit’ the baskets and silent auction items and to tally the car show votes.

    After the River Cruise and the drive to Lake Coeur d’Alene we convened at Templin's banquet facility to start our dinner show, awards ceremony with entertainment provided by Doug Weyer (stage name Douglas Younger) as Elvis. Tom Eickmeyer served as emcee for the awards ceremony, along with being the emcee the night before at the night glow show. The dinner was great and we awarded 31 trophies for various categories relating to the car show. After that we started the ‘Elvis’ entertainment. I had never seen Doug Weyer perform his show, but had heard it was great. That was an understatement. EVERYONE was truly impressed by the quality of the show, and the energy generated by his performance was AWESOME. One of the visitors from Yaki-Vegas stated she had seen 3 other Elvis tribute artists in the last 3-4 years, and Doug was, without a doubt, the best, most energetic Elvis she had experienced. THANK YOU DOUG for a truly FANTASTIC show. It should also be mentioned that Doug waived any payment from our club for his performance, only asking that a ‘tip jar’ be allowed. Needless to say, by the end of the evening that jar was full. If you were unable to attend the awards ceremony and Elvis tribute show, you missed a great time.

    Mention should be made that Lynda Schoenberg’s brother (I forgot his name!) brought his RV and storage trailer to our show, providing a PA system for announcements, and being security for our facility overnight. He also brought the tables and chairs that we set up, along with much of the stage and lighting for the Elvis show. This was much appreciated by all, and a big thank you for doing this.

THANK YOU NW CRUISER MEMBERS FOR ALL OF YOUR HARD WORK AND DEDICATION IN SEEING THIS RIVER RENDEZVOUS CAR SHOW TO A SUCCESSFUL FINISH.

July 8, 2010: The end has come. An article in USA Today, this date, announced that the last PT Cruiser would roll off the assembly line tomorrow, July 9. The article painted this as a symbol of the auto industry's problems. We don't agree with that statement as it has been known for nearly two years the PT was being dropped, in fact being actually dropped in 2009 and resurrected for 2010. Other topics in the article were more correct, noting how popular it was initially, and the declining sales over time. In 2007 it still sold 99,585 units, but only 50,910 for 2009 and 8,591 for 2010 through June. Total sales for its life were about 1.5 million, certainly not a 'failure" in the auto market. The article correctly notes that Chrysler made no significant investment in it once released, and more damaging, applied numerous cost cutting measures to it, mostly embodied in with the 2006 remodel, which only served to "cheapen" the car in shopper's eyes. Having owned both pre and post 2006 models, I can agree that the "Gen II" models had cheaper aspects to them, but also some positive aspects. (See the PT history on this site for more details). I believe the changes did not impact the car mechanically, making the Gen II models as reliable as the Gen I models. The dropping of the turbo engines in 2008 (230hp) and 2009 (180hp) also made it less desirable. In truth, the PT has proven to be a very reliable car and will last many miles if properly maintained. As with any car whose design is out of the ordinary, it will have those people who really like it and those who dislike it just as emphatically. Each of us Cruiser fans has our own reasons we like the car and we tend to be very enthusiastic about our cars. We will do what we can to prolong the lives and usage of our cars and perhaps can inspire other PT owners to join with us and learn to preserve their cars as best possible. Now we can wait and see if the PT will eventually become a "classic" car. (see the PT history on this site for some conjecture).

February 22, 2010: We have confirmed the 2010 "Classic Cruiser" is being manufactured having seen two on the lot at one of our local dealers in January. The car come in one model only, with many former equipment options now standard equipment. There are some options available as well and numerous exterior color choices. The car is really just the same as the 2009 models but with the standard equipment and options re-arranged. Chrysler announced some time ago this will be the last year the PT is manufactured as production will be shutdown in late 2010 for factory retooling to produce a small car for North America based on the Fiat 500. You better get your new PT while you can.

August 21, 2009:  Further information about a 2010 Cruiser has been released by Chrysler on one of their web sites. They are listing a "PT Cruiser Classic" with an MSRP of $18,000. Other reports indicate the car will begin production on November 2nd and will be a Base model, but will be well equipped with with standard features such as automatic transaxle and 4-wheel disc antilock brakes. There will be some options available as well but there was no mention of a turbo engine.

August 6, 2009:  This news was not reported much in the mainstream media, but the automotive press carried it. In early July, Chrysler announced that plans have changed and they in fact will continue building the PT Cruiser into December 2010. They also plan to sell it into more International markets by allowing existing Fiat dealers to sell the PT. They don't plan any significant changes to the PT. Correspondents varied in their reactions, having both negative and positive opinions about this action. Opinions were offered that it should be good for Chrysler to do this as labor costs are low for the PT, and the tooling is fully amortized. Therefore, each PT sold carries significant profit, and there is no question Chrysler can use the money. It was noted that the PT was designed originally to have a break even level of just 25,000 PT's sold per year. It has greatly exceeded that. The most sold in any year was some 144,000, but that was an early production year and sales have declined each year since, to just under 50,000 in 2008 it was reported. Sales for 2009 are not known as of yet. Continuing the PT makes sense to us as Chrysler is in a "bridge" mode, meaning they have to continue selling existing product until new product can be brought to market. New owner Fiat will certainly have great influence over what new product is developed. With that in mind they stated that when they do cease PT production in December 2010, the plant will be shutdown for six months while being re-tooled to build a new small car for North America, probably based on an existing Fiat model. For now, we are just happy that the PT will continue for awhile yet.

January 15, 2009: It is ironic that the first news item on this page on our new web site is sad news for PT Cruiser fans. Chrysler Corporation confirmed rumors today that the PT Cruiser will cease production this summer at the normal end of the 2009 model year production. Speculation about this action has been prevalent for some time for several reasons. The PT Cruiser design goes back to 2000, which is a lifetime for a car style in the auto industry. It received a cosmetic makeover for 2006 that was not well received among Cruiser fans. The convertible was quietly dropped from production in December 2007. For the 2008 model year the GT was eliminated along with the High-Output turbo engine. Chrysler's current owners have been dropping slow selling models within all their brands. They had stated in recent years that they could not see how to redesign the Cruiser in a manner that would retain it's "niche" status, yet fit in with current manufacturing processes. Another factor was that the PT's engine is now only used in the PT. Auto manufacturing now dictates they be able to build several vehicle models on any given platform. These and other factors along with the severe economic downturn of late 2008 likely sealed the PT's fate. So, what do PT fans do now?

First of all, appreciate and take care of your Cruiser. If you have an older model and were considering a new one, this would be the time to buy it. No one knows what sort of status the PT will gain in the future. Will it become a collector car with it's own "cult" following? Or will it shuffle into auto history unremarked and ignored? Some of that will be influenced by this PT club, and the many other such clubs across the USA and around the world for that matter. Other popular cars have been discontinued before, and eventually have become very desirable garnering high prices. A few have had newly created models reintroduced recently to serve a "niche" market that exists. We are speculating that certain models of the PT will see demand for them increase in the next few years as PT fans scoop them up while they can. The basic PT models will likely fade away over time as their supply in the marketplace dwindles. It will also be interesting to see how the aftermarket industry continues to support the PT. It has had very good aftermarket support with all kinds of goodies available. It remains to be seen over time how that holds up.

All this means it is more important than before to "trick out" your PT if you wish, and to take proper care of it to make it last. The members of this club will be doing these things to their cars and we hope to provide information and ideas here for other owners to do the same. We suggest more than ever that you consider joining our club to share in our appreciation of the PT and ideas and techniques for moving forward from this point.