Dodge Intrepid ESX - Future Cars - First Drive! - American Cars

Dodge Intrepid ESXAs your personal automotive prognosticators we've assembled this special future-car section to give you a look at the transportation modules you'll be lusting after in the years to come. This varied vehicular horizon is illuminated by photographs of '97 and '98 products, thinly disguised future production vehicles, and absolutely outrageous concept cars. (Keep in mind that the '98 Plymouth Prowler hot rod and the V-10-powered Dodge Viper were once just outlandish concepts.) Normally, the automotive future is locked securely behind barbed-wire fences, vigilant guards, and never-blinking security cameras, but at auto shows, car designers and engineers crack open the doors to their future-product studios. They test the public-opinion waters by teasing crowds with the elegant, the absurd, and frequently, the bizarre. On the following pages, you'll find a comprehensive collection of the latest concept vehicles and early '97 production models featured at the recent Detroit and Los Angeles auto shows. Also included in this special section is a future timeline that covers virtually all major automakers and stretches way out to 2001.

Antimatter-powered interplanetary space travel; genetically engineered superhumans; a Cray supercomputer etched onto your cuff link; and medical miracles like brain transplants, holographic doctors, and a cure for the common cold-you know, future stuff: That's what the Dodge Intrepid ESX is, except Chrysler Corp. has built it now. And we were granted the world-exclusive first drive of this next-century sport sedan.

The all-aluminum Intrepid ESX is intended for customers in 2010, but it's already alarming competitors, recalibrating auto engineering's benchmark, and absolutely blowing the socks off auto-show crowds.

When Chrysler Corp. engineers and designer-stylists plant Hoover Dams on the mightiest rivers of their creative imaginations and dream of next-century sport sedans, they see the ESX. And while engineers at other companies often merely dream, Chrysler has taken quantum leaps forward by actually building production versions of show cars like the drool-inducing V-10 Viper and Prowler hot rod. The obvious question: Will the ESX be next?

To competitors, particularly import competitors, the ESX is no dream: It's an unholy nightmare. It's jet fighters versus prop planes. The intent here is to so radically change the rules that sleepy competitors are suddenly standing alone in the middle of a killing field with a stone axe, while Chrysler's archers pick them off with longbows. Got the idea?

The stated goal with the ESX is to give buyers a sport sedan with the performance, roominess, and inflation-adjusted price of today's Intrepid. But this new-type sedan must also have superb looks, triple the current government-mandated CAFE fuel economy (presently at 27.5 mpg), enhanced recyclability, and near electric-vehicle emissions levels.

The show-stopper is its price. The ESX, because it's a one-off, hand-built concept, cost Chrysler millions. But even high-volume production versions likely would have to be priced at at least $80,000 per copy, according to Franois Castaing, executive vice president of engineering for ChryCo. The high cost of these advanced vehicles is due to the fact they're assembled primarily from exotic materials and aerospace electronic components.

"People are not going to pay extra for fuel efficiency given today's conditions, even if it's triple what they can currently get," says Peter Rosenfeld, Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) director for Chrysler Corp. Established in 1993, PNGV is a federal-government and U.S.-automaker partnership working to develop technologies that will enable the shift away from conventional vehicle design.