Lower gas prices send buyers after big cars again

NEW ORLEANS

Press says the company’s full-size Dodge Durango SUV is in the shortest supply among all the vehicles sold by Chrysler. Yet the automaker decided last year when gas prices were high to phase out the product out of fear buyers would shun it.

The turnabout “shows the fickleness of the market,” says Press, speaking after a J.D. Power and Associates conference here for auto dealers.

Guessing what people want has been just as hard for dealers. AutoNation (AN), the country’s largest dealer chain, struggled last summer to stock enough hot-selling fuel misers on its sales lots.

USA Today