Popular Mechanics: PT Cruiser No. 1

AUBURN HILLS, Mich.--Popular Mechanics magazine has given its Design & Engineering Award to the 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser, recognizing the car’s “excellence in engineering, design and innovation.”

“The Chrysler PT Cruiser is just too darn cute,” said Joe Oldham, Popular Mechanics’ editor-in-chief. “People like looking at it and it still draws crowds,” he pointed out.

“Yes, it could have won on design alone, but the engineering is there too,” Oldham said. “Its happy little body is wrapped around a marvelous, innovative interior package.”

The Chrysler PT Cruiser, starting at $16,500, hit dealerships late March and has drawn unprecedented crowds to Chrysler showrooms. More than 56,000 of the segment-busting vehicles have been sold to date.

About 120,000 will be built for the 2001 model year and DaimlerChrysler has already added a second production site in Graz, Austria to help meet consumer demand--bringing capacity to 230,000 vehicles for the 2002 model year.

Although it’s early in the 2001 model year, the Chrysler PT Cruiser has already won several other awards, including: Business Week’s “Products to Watch,” Fortune’s “Top Ten Pick of the Auto Show,” Autoweek’s “America’s Best,” and Wired Magazine’s “Most Wired Product Design.”