Ralph Gilles, Chrysler vice president of product design and CEO SRT (Street and Racing Technology) & SRT Motorsport, said the Auburn Hills-based automaker has started shipping the popular Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT 8 to China, and hopes to expand the brand in years to come.
View full sizeSRT family (L to R) 2012 Chrysler 300 SRT8, Dodge Charger SRT8, Dodge Challenger SRT8 392 and Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8.MACKINAC ISLAND, MI- Chrysler Group LLC has big, fast plans for its high-performance SRT brand, according to its overseer.
Ralph Gilles, Chrysler senior vice president of product design and CEO SRT (Street and Racing Technology) & SRT Motorsport, said the Auburn Hills-based automaker has started shipping the popular Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT 8 to China and hopes to expand the brand in years to come.
“I want to keep growing the brand,” Gilles told MLive.com during the Mackinac Policy Conference last month. “(We) get a lot of questions from different countries – a lot of letters. People want the car, so that tells me they are paying attention.
“The new website that we have … I’m getting like hundreds of thousands of views and I only sell 16,000 cars in the U.S., so something is going on here that is bigger than us.”
While the SRT Challenger remains the brand’s top-seller, Gilles said interest -- particularly for the Grand Cherokee and 2013 SRT Viper -- is coming from around the globe. He said the Viper supercar was designed for the global market, and the vehicle’s digital screens allow the company to easily program it for different languages.
Chrysler announced SRT as its own brand last year, as CEO and Chairman Sergio Marchionne shook things up. The brand started with four models – Charger, 300, Grand Cherokee and Challenger – but has grown to include the Viper, with whispers of other vehicles coming.
In May, Marchionne told Automotive News that a SRT Dart, which is already coming in five trim levels under the Dodge brand, is the next vehicle for the high-performance brand.
"The only thing we're fighting over now is to determine how big an engine we stick in it," he said.
Gilles wouldn’t talk about the possibility of a SRT Dart, but said, he loves “the way the man (Marchionne) thinks.”
The Dart is the first vehicle jointly designed with vehicle between Chrysler and Fiat SpA, which took control of the company as part of the 2009 auto bailout. The vehicle is based on the Alfa Romeo Giulietta, a compact sold in Europe, but is wider and longer to handle Americans' need for more space.
SRT, while reportedly lower in sales due to pricing, is a symbol for the company and can help its other brands, according to Gilles.
“It’s really about getting people to look at our company,” he said. “We find a lot of Viper owners end up buying Rams, and buying minivans, and buying Durangos because they fall in love with what the company stands for -- not just the one car.”
The least expensive 2012 SRT model is the Dodge Challenger starting at $44,995, followed by the Charger at $46,795; 300 at $48,470; and Grand Cherokee at $60,960. Chrysler has not released pricing for the Viper.
Gilles said SRT customers aren’t necessarily traditional Chrysler customers – not only because of the pricing, but their need for speed.
“They’re different,” he said. “We need a place to keep the performance nuts. And we speak to them. We have to market to them because they’re interchangeable.
“A 300 (SRT) guy has a lot more in common with a Charger than a normal-base 300 guy has with a Charger guy.”
Chrysler has special events, a website, a "Viper Cafe" and numerous other promotions specifically for SRT.
Click here for more on Gilles and SRT.
Email Michael Wayland: MWayland@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/MikeWayland