2007 Chrysler Town & Country Touring 4 Door Minivan With Stow & Go. on 2040-cars

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How the demise of Lincoln's Town Car has kick-started a limo revolution

The deaths of the Ford Crown Victoria and the Lincoln Town Car have meant overhauls of three high-profile American fleets: police, taxi and livery car. Just as police fleets are more open to considering other options and a Nissan van is the new face of the NYC taxi, livery car companies are looking at replacements for the Town Car beyond The Blue Oval. Ford, via Lincoln, has made an MKT Town Car (pictured), but an article in the Detroit News claims "it has failed to win over most of the big limousine companies." The upstarts trying to move in include livery and limo editions of the Cadillac XTS, and livery specifications of the Toyota Avalon and Chrysler 300.
Each of those challengers, however, faces challenges. The Town Car was a workhorse, American, rear-wheel-drive sedan with plenty of rear legroom. Cadillac has been in the livery space before but with decontented models that were about selling the brand, not its luxury. It is taking the opposite approach with the XTS, pointing out that its livery edition is "contented in the upper half of the XTS range." Still, the CEO of Michigan's largest livery company says "it's quite a bit smaller than what we're used to," and he also prefers rear-wheel drive.
The Chrysler 300 is rear-wheel drive, and American, which matters to some companies, but Chrysler hasn't yet revealed the livery package for it. The livery Avalon marks Toyota's first time getting into that business in the US, a natural step after having done so well with taxi clients and with the Town Car out of the way. Still, the livery client is a different to taxi buyers, so the Avalon could face other soft-touch hurdles.

Chrysler teases upcoming outlay of SEMA cars

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is hauling a multitude of modified models to the annual SEMA show in Las Vegas this November, and the company is releasing the first teasing sketches of many of them.
Unfortunately, FCA isn't giving many solid details on any of the concepts other than saying the vehicles from Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Ram and Fiat all benefit from tuning from its Mopar performance brand. The teaser photos include a sinister-looking Chrysler 200S, Fiat 500 Abarth with two-tone paint and a scorpion on the hood, a red and black 500L, seemingly two different takes on the Jeep Renegade, a green Dodge Challenger wearing the T/A badge, an orange and black Dart, a very neon Charger, just the outline of a red and black Viper, a Ram ProMaster in Mopar livery and a Ram pickup called the Outdoorsman.
Take a look through the gallery to see what you think of the sketches for these concepts, and scroll down for the full announcement from FCA.

Chrysler's Hurricane engine detailed ahead of 2016 launch

We've been hearing distant rumblings about Chrysler's new Hurricane engine for some time now, but details have been hard to come by. Now, Automotive News is adding some specifics to the scuttlebutt, citing Chrysler documents. According to the industry publication, the Hurricane will blow onto the scene in 2016, but it's not an all-new engine. Rather, it will be rooted in the company's existing 2.0-liter four-cylinder Tigershark powerplant (shown above), albeit with "many new technologies to achieve excellent fuel economy."
It's not clear what sort of technologies Chrysler is referring to, but the Hurricane is expected to continue to use an aluminum block, and the finished product is expected to generate even better figures than the existing 2.0-liter's 160 horsepower and 148 pound-feet of torque (as found in the Dodge Dart). Automotive News notes that the updated 2.4-liter Tigershark debuting in the entry-level 2014 Jeep Cherokee has its basis in the 2.0-liter lump, but unlike the smaller engine, it's been fitted with MultiAir2 electrohydraulic variable valve timing to realize 184 hp and 171 lb-ft and greater efficiency.
Perhaps the Hurricane will incorporate the latter in its bag of tricks? Either way, we're hoping for a more generous torque curve than the what's in the current 2.0-liter Tigershark, which is something of a slug in the Dart - even for a base economy compact.