If you feel the current crop of family hatchbacks and mini-MPVs lack a certain charisma, Dodge hope their Caliber will get you fired up. Andy Enright reports
It’s taken a long time for car manufacturers to realise that just because you may have a family on the go, it doesn’t mean you’re resigned to a life without a little style, a certain individuality and a degree of fun. Look at the cars that are churned out for family buyers. By and large they’re about as much fun as a thumb in the eye. The day you end up with a bog-standard family hatchback or mini-MPV on your driveway is the day that you’ve waved the white flag, started getting interested in Marks and Spencer knitwear and wondering why you’d never thought of listening to Radio Three before.
There is another way and Dodge can offer a family-friendly five seater that is fun, funky, decidedly unconventional and has more than a spark of charisma. It’s called the Caliber and although underneath the bluff styling is some pretty unexceptional engineering, it’s a car that has a lot going for it, especially at prices starting from just £11,495.
The success of the Chrysler PT Cruiser showed that funky styling could make inroads into a market obsessed by seats that can flip and tumble like an Olympic gymnast with ADHD. The Caliber is Daimler Chrysler’s latest attempt to eke out a slice of this hard-fought sector for itself, the Dodge brand being unleashed onto a British market with the promise of some supersized American helpings over the next few years. The Caliber is the car tasked with forming a beach head and it’s a tough ask. Models like the Vauxhall Zafira, the Toyota Corolla Verso and the Honda FR-V are, on any objective basis, superior products that the Dodge can’t hope to beat in terms of depth of design. Where it can score is in offering something with a little more youth appeal.
A good deal of outside help has been drafted in with this model. The 1.8 and 2.0-litre petrol engines have been developed in partnership with Hyundai and Mitsubishi, the 2.0-litre diesel comes courtesy of Volkswagen and the front-wheel drive chassis also relies on the help of Mitsubishi. Such is the face of modern vehicle development where costs are so huge that manufacturers must group together to pool resources. If this rather odd sounding Japanese-Korean-German amalgam fails to appetise, perhaps the Caliber’s all-American styling will. The front end looks like something that needs the backdrop of Monument Valley behind it as it appears in your rear view mirror with muscular blistered wheel arches, the big set of crosshairs on the grille and headlights that are so big you suspect Dodge definitely paid the additional 50c to go large. Although it looks like a hefty piece of metalwork, the Caliber isn’t as beefy as the macho styling would suggest. At 4,414mm long, it takes up about the same amount of room on the road as a Zafira, so it shouldn’t prove a nightmare in town.
"The Caliber is far from perfect but at the same time it’s curiously endearing"
One area where the Caliber definitely has to give second best to the likes of the Vauxhall is in interior packaging. If you’re the sort of buyer who loves all those clever seating solutions, the Caliber is going to leave you a little underwhelmed. Where it does make a lot of ground back is in the much underestimated area of all round funkiness. The interior colour schemes are more like something from a Soho ad agency’s reception and although the materials quality isn’t going to give Audi engineers any sleepless nights, there’s something fresh about this cabin that other manufacturers would do well to observe. Take for instance the Apple iPod holder that sits on the underside of the centre armrest. Flip the centre portion of the armrest over and your iPod has a place to sit rather than being clonked and scratched by gear in the glove box as you go round every corner. A chilled compartment above the glove box is big enough to store four bottles of water while the front passenger seat can fold flat to get really big items like surfboards or skis inside. The rear seats fold down easily enough to provide a cavernous rear loading bay but with the seats in place, rear knee room isn’t hugely generous.
One of the options that’s sure to prove popular with younger buyers is the Boston Acoustics stereo upgrade. With no fewer than nine speakers, this system can really handle some bass. A speaker pod and subwoofer are fitted into the tailgate which can then swing down to face backwards - perfect for impromptu block parties or barbecues. Otherwise there’s only a slight lack of oddments storage to complain about.
The petrol engines aren’t in themselves particularly noteworthy, the 1.8-litre unit looking set to be the best seller. It’ll get the Dodge to 60mph in around 9 seconds and on to a top speed of over 120mph. The 148bhp power output is a decent return in a market where, for example, a Ford Focus 1.8i C-MAX can only call upon 118bhp but a penalty comes in terms of fuel economy, the Caliber weighing 1,345kg. Both the 1.8 and 2.0-litre petrols thrive on revs although the standard five-speed gearbox isn’t the slickest unit on the market.
The diesel model looks set to be worth a look with 229lb/ft of torque on offer and a power output of 136bhp. This 2.0-litre unit is a direct-injection turbo diesel with high-pressure fuel injection, a variable geometry turbocharger and four valves per cylinder. The injectors are electronically controlled, allowing precise management of each combustion cycle with the optimum quantity of fuel. This system can operate at pressures of up to 2000 bar, leading to finer atomization of fuel, high power and torque, and decent fuel efficiency. Although we don’t get the 2.4-litre petrol engine that’s sold in the US, nor the 4x4 chassis, British buyers will get an efficient CVT transmission instead of the usual automatic option. The characteristics of this box take a bit of getting used to and many buyers will prefer to pay a little extra to get the Autostick manual selection system.
The Caliber certainly has its work cut out but it’s possible to see it carving a niche for itself through sheer force of personality. Cars this flawed don’t often make it, but the Dodge has an endearing personality and a certain rough-hewn charm. It’s well worth a look if you’re not on the slippery slope just yet.
Facts At A Glance
CAR: Dodge Caliber Range
PRICES: £11,495-£15,430 - on the road
INSURANCE GROUPS: 13E [2.0 petrol]
CO2 EMISSIONS: 161-192g/km
PERFORMANCE: [2.0 petrol] 0-60mph – 10.7s/ Max Speed 125mph
FUEL CONSUMPTION: [2.0 petrol] [urban] 28.0mpg / [extra urban] 40.9mpg / [combined] 34.9mpg
STANDARD SAFETY FEATURES: Twin front, side and curtain airbags, ABS, tyre pressure monitoring
/WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE?: Length/Width/Height, 4414/1747/1533mm