Dodge is launching a second wave of marketing for its Dart compact sedan as more cars begin arriving in dealerships.
While a 90-second Dart commercial debuted July 10, the company plans to launch a broader campaign this month that will include additional TV spots, print and digital advertising.
The goal of the first commercial for the Dart was to build awareness of the new car. The new campaign will likely highlight features and performance.
Sales of the Dart, Chrysler's most important new car this year, have been constrained by a deliberately slow launch that limited consumers initially to a manual transmission.
Developed from the underlying structure of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta, the Dart is the first car that evolved from computer design to showroom since the 2009 marriage between Chrysler and majority-owner Fiat.
"We've employed very much a disciplined, methodical, unwavering focus on quality with respect to the ramp-up of the 2013 Dart," Reid Bigland, Dodge CEO and Chrysler's U.S. sales chief, said this week.
Chrysler expects August sales of the Dart will top 3,000 in the U.S. and 400 in Canada.
"September will be substantially more than August," Bigland said.
Chrysler is pleased with Dart sales even though expected August sales are only a fraction of normal monthly sales for top competitors. Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla typically sell 25,000 or more cars per month. Monthly sales of the Ford Focus have topped 21,000 this year and sales of the Chevrolet Cruze have topped 18,000. While production of the Dart began in May, most dealers were lucky if they had a half-dozen Darts in early August.
"We are selling everything we've got," said David Kelleher, a dealer in Glen Mills, Pa., and chairman of Chrysler's National Dealer Council.
At the end of July, Chrysler dealers had just 8,100 Darts to sell compared with 56,000 for the Chevrolet Cruze, 51,800 for Honda Civic, 36,500 for Mazda3, 35,800 for Ford Focus, and 14,000 for the Hyundai Elantra, according to WardsAuto.
Kelleher -- who already has booked eight sales for September -- expects Dart sales will increase substantially once dealer inventory approaches 20,000 later this month.
Dealers also say sales are slower because Chrysler produced only manual transmissions with a 1.4-liter engine for several weeks before it began production of automatic transmissions with the 2.0-liter Tigershark engine.
Bigland, in a statement Friday, said Chrysler intentionally started with manual transmissions even though a majority of Americans prefer cars with automatic transmissions.
"If you think about the Dart and its Alfa Romeo Guilietta underpinnings ... the 1.4 MultiAir Turbo engine and six-speed manual transmission combination represent the true driving dynamic feel of the Dart, and that's clearly what we wanted to establish initially in the marketplace."
"They laid out the production plan for me, and we haven't missed one note of that plan," Kelleher said. "The automatics even got here a week earlier than they were supposed to."
Carl Galeana, owner of Galeana's Van Dyke Dodge, said he sold 11 Dodge Darts in August.
"I think that is a good number given my initial inventory," Galeana said. "When we get ramped up, I expect Dart to be a 30- to 40-permonth vehicle."
By Brent Snavely
Detroit Free Press Business Writer
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