Chrysler Neon
automobile model
The Neon is a compact car built by Chrysler from the 1995 to 2005 model years. Taking its name from the inert gas, the model line was marketed by Dodge and Plymouth; in Europe, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Egypt, Australia, South Africa, and South America, the Neon was branded as a Chrysler (from 2001 to 2003, also in Canada). The model line was the first compact car to become profitable for an American automaker.
The Neon used the front-wheel drive Chrysler PL platform, which replaced three sets of vehicles: the Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon (retired in 1990), the Dodge Shadow/Plymouth Sundance, and the Mitsubishi-sourced Dodge/Plymouth Colt (Eagle did not sell the Neon to replace the Summit).
For the Mexican and the Middle Eastern market, the Dodge Neon nameplate returned from 2016 to 2020 as a rebranded version of the Fiat Tipo sedan for the Mexican and the Middle Eastern market.
During its original production, Chrysler assembled the Neon in its Belvidere Assembly (Belvidere, Illinois) and Toluca Car Assembly (Toluca, Mexico State) facilities.
Development
The development of the Neon began life in the mid-1980s at American Motors Corporation (AMC), as its designers began development on a replacement for the Renault Alliance (the American version of the Renault R9). In 1987, Chrysler Corporation acquired AMC, combining the AMC design team with Chrysler engineers previously assigned to the L platform (Omni/Horizon and variants).
The PL project became codenamed "Counterattack", in relation to Lee Iacocca's opinion to media statements that Big Three automakers could no longer build vehicles with the innovation, quality, or efficiency that their Japanese counterparts used to attract consumers. The project goal for the newly merged team was to develop a car that was "lightweight, fuel sipping, powerful, comfortable in an American manner, yet to cost no more than a bit under $4,000 to build, with a retail sales price of no more than $8,000".
The public source identifies “Chrysler Neon” as automobile model. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Chrysler, Neon and automobile.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q478810. The Library of Congress control number is sh97008747. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1995, 2005, 2001 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chrysler Neon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.