150 brand-new 1997 Neons uncovered

[daves87rs]

Originally Posted By: dishdude
I had a '95 that I got in July of 1994 when I was in HS, drove it to college and every job I had up until my current one. Racked up 185k miles on it and it never let me down. I sold it for $800 and wish I would have held on to it.




I wish I could say that...ours was on it's second head gasket when it was traded in...

 

[crinkles]

i smell a rat. no one forgets 150 cars.

 

[Silk]

Being right hand drive they will probably end up in New Zealand. We are having a shortage of used Japanese imports,these will fill the gap nicely. Vehicles imported used from Singapore to here have had rubber (tyres and belts) issues,and also wiring problems...although that was with Mercedes,and the same problems of the biodegradable wiring loom appeared on local cars a few years later.

Neons were sold here for a couple of years,one of my customers had one - apart from a head gasket we only did servicing on it,seemed a nice little car.

 

[IndyIan]

Alot of Neon love here! The cars might be OK, mine still has pretty much all the original rubber stuff under the hood, except for the belts, and plug wires.
I think alot of the export ones were 1.8L with reduced emmisions equipment so it might be a bit of an oddball.

 

[JTK]

Originally Posted By: crinkles
i smell a rat. no one forgets 150 cars.


No doubt about that.

 

[Challenger71]

There is a few Neon haters trolling in here, not to mention Chrysler in general.Let's hope it does'nt de-volve into that.


Originally Posted By: Vikas
Who would not love to get a Neon stuffed in a DX yellow envelope in the mail? I wonder if they make that big of an envelope

- Vikas

P.S. I get steady stream of DX / Meritline envelopes every week or so.

 

[CivicFan]

Originally Posted By: JTK
Originally Posted By: crinkles
i smell a rat. no one forgets 150 cars.


No doubt about that.


They probably did not comply with the Singapore regulations and were not allowed to be imported. Sometimes it's cheaper to just junk products like that then try to find another market for them.

 

[MrCritical]

They may be untitled with no miles, but they aren't "new".

1997 models could have been built in 1996. That would make them 15 years old.

 

[chewbacca]

I was stationed in Singapore from July 1992 to October 1996. Singapore is unarguably the most expensive country(city-state) to own a passenger vehicle. There are several steps a person must take in order to purchase a vehicle. 1st step: bid on a "certificate of entitlement" that gives you "permission" to purchase a vehicle. And on top of that, the bid goes up depending on size/displacement and how many people bid in the first place. Then when you do purchase the vehicle, the Singapore government taxes the living heck out of the vehicle and that also depends on the size/displacement of the vehicle. In the early-mid 90's, a typical Honda Civic could cost well over $80k (US). And yes, there is a time limit on how long you can keep that vehicle. Those 'new" Neons will probably make their way to either Malaysia or Indonesia.

 

[45ACP]

This car had a lot of problems.

Are they under warranty? Since they are "New"..............

 

[urchin]

I'm very wary of this story. It does have the smell of scam to me. If this story is true then they would have belonged to the official importer of Chrysler products at the time, so does anyone know who that would be, was it a official Chrysler distribution entity or a secondary company. In any case I bet that if they were refused for sale there that Chrysler would have simply shipped them by truck to another country that would accept them.

That being said if this is real and there was little deterioration of the cars I would probably take two. They were very nice driving cars for the time. Are they manual trannies?

 

[Cutehumor]

why did they sit in the barn for all those years? who leaves 150 cars untouched!

 

[daves87rs]

Originally Posted By: Cutehumor
why did they sit in the barn for all those years? who leaves 150 cars untouched!

 

[Popinski]

My guess is some lotto winner wanted to buy 150 Neons for the heck of it and store them in a barn. Then, report it 14 years later so Americans can be impressed.

 

[45ACP]

Originally Posted By: Cutehumor
why did they sit in the barn for all those years? who leaves 150 cars untouched!


Jay Leno.