Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is reviving the ill-fated Dodge Caliber nameplate and gearing it to the involuntary celibates of the Far Right, just in time for the mid-term elections.
The revival is part of a new marketing strategy which seeks to exploit the fragmentation of American society, by targeting the fragments instead of the whole.
The 2018 Trumplicker Edition features an assortment of InCel bumper stickers with that goal in mind. They range from “fuck your feminism” to “my right hand doesn’t ask me to be gentle.”
The sales campaign is timed to launch on Election Day.
Why just one seat for the vehicle Edmunds calls a rocket-powered Pinto?
“Let’s face it, the fake tough guys who shell out $26,000 for this piece of poser junk are growing old alone,” said Fiat CEO Michael Manley. “They don’t need another seat. Plus it brings down costs, thereby lifting our profit-per-unit.”
Standard equipment includes an on-board gun safe with room for six handguns and three long guns. Fiat is offering the first 1,000 buyers a free Colt AR-15 assault rifle just like the one domestic terrorist Nicholas Cruz used to gun down 34 high school classmates because he couldn’t get laid.
English Mike defended the morality of gearing an entire vehicle to an unhinged market segment – citing his legal obligation to maximize shareholder value by any means necessary.
“I’m not responsible for the erosion of The American Dream,” Manley said. “The painful truth is there’s a large segment of fake tough guys who seek solace in firearms ownership and the comforting fictions of a Republican Party which has embraced Fascism and White Nationalism. They buy cars. We sell cars.”
The Open Carry Texas Edition features a hand lotion dispenser in the dash, in a nod to the vase of fake flowers in the revamped Volkswagen Beetle. There’s also a slot for Kleenex in the center console, alongside a waste receptacle for used tissues and spent shells.
The Rise Above Edition (below left) is geared specifically to owners of landscape firms, who claim to oppose illegal immigration while staffing their businesses entirely with undocumented workers. It features hidey holes for six workers and a life-like sex doll.
Fiat is marketing the revamped Caliber as the perfect vehicle for men with little or no mating rights in an increasingly incoherent United States. Its target audience includes Republicans who are terrified of being leveled with the rest of the world and having to compete in the mythical “free market” they claim to embrace.
“I like it,” said Tommy Smith (below right) of Houston. “The name appeals to me as a gun-owner. And I’m also pleased that Fiat is finally making a vehicle for those of us with a proper Aryan bloodline.”
The original incarnation of the Caliber generated just 400,000 sales from 2007 to 2012. That’s equivalent to about one year of sales for Toyota’s Rav-4 SUV.
The Caliber is a monument to overpowered front drivers, with “conservative” power and torque ratings, according to Edmunds. Its handling characteristics rank in the bottom of the off-road poser SUV segment.
Prices start at $26,500 for the base vehicle, sans gun safe, sex doll, Kleenex dispenser, and hand lotion.
“Launches were hampered by the ‘bog or boil’ effect, where the engine either falls on its face or the tires spin uncontrollably,” said Edmunds Senior Road Test Editor Josh Jacquot. “This is a drawback of the inertial effects of heavy wheels and tires, in combination with an increasingly obese population of right wing fat-asses nourished by a toxic food supply.”
English Mike (left) pooh-poohed the lukewarm test drive results, noting that Fiat is not selling the vehicle to people with good judgment. The Italian-American automobile manufacturer is based in London, but registered in the Netherlands for tax purposes.
“Our target market is composed entirely of useful idiots, fake tough guys and involuntary celibates,” said English Mike. “Basically, second stringers struggling for mating rights.
“Personally, I’d rather be selling a better vehicle to a more intelligent buyer, but when life gives you lemons you make lemonade. That’s what we’re doing here – making loser lemonade.”
The Caliber is the perfect vehicle for those who talk a good game about buying American, but are actually completely full of shit. The under-powered station-wagon carries a Made in America name-tag, but key components are produced mostly overseas.
The Caliber boasts a continuously variable transmission sourced from Jatco (a Nissan subsidiary), and a four-cylinder 2.4 liter engine designed jointly by Chrysler, Mitsubishi, and Hyundai. It’s built upon a GS platform co-designed with Mitsubishi Motors.
However, the real star of the Caliber show is the fragmented American electorate created by The Moron President’s identity politics and The Right Wing Noise Machine. English Mike said Fiat plans to target another vehicle at radical feminists who think all men are scum.
Fiat hopes to have a revamped Dodge LaFemme ready in time for the 2022 presidential election. The original vehicle debuted in 1955 and was targeted at female consumers.
The resurrected LaFemme’s marketing campaign is built around the “Do You Believe Rich Women Can Grow Old Alone” slogan the Me Too Matriarchy embraced in early 2018.
The automaker is also weighing the economics of a Malcolm X Edition of its popular Chrysler 300 sedan.
Fiat has tabbed political opportunist Al Sharpton to portray The Rev. Martin Luther King and Clueless co-star Stacey Dash is slated to play abolitionist Harriet Tubman in an advertising campaign that levels the sacrificial leaders of old with the political hookers of today.
“Identity politics isn’t just for political hookers any more,” said English Mike. “America is falling to pieces as the Predatory 1 Percent uses divide-and-conquer tactics to hang onto power. We intend to cash in on the resulting fragmentation every step of the way.”
