With all the gloomy headlines about the auto industry in the newspapers, it was great to get out to sunny California over the weekend and see how hundreds of owners from around the country have customized their late model Chrysler 300, Dodge Challenger, Dodge Charger and Dodge Magnum vehicles. 

The event was the fourth annual Spring Festival of LXs - LX being the codename for the platform that those four vehicles are built on. These owners are passionate, creative and knowledgeable - and they willingly shared their wisdom with Chrysler executives Joe Dehner, Vice President - Production Car, Minivan, Truck & Jeep Design, and Tony Elias, Chief Engineer - LX Platform. Joe and Tony said several times that they were eager to relay what they had seen and heard at the festival with their colleagues back in Michigan.

More than 600 people traveled from 18 U.S. states and Canada to attend the festival. The owners spent thousands of dollars, and countless hours, on their vehicles. There was everything from heavily modified Chrysler 300Cs with scissor doors to Dodge Challengers fresh from the dealership. Last year, there was just one new Dodge Challenger - this year there were more than 100. It made for quite a sight - we got a good view of the top of the parking deck of Ford's west coast headquarters, located across the street from the event, held in Irvine. (At one point, organizers incited the crowd to shout “Mo-Par” towards the Ford building).

Big shout out to the So Cal LX club and head organizer John Fortuno for putting together a great event. John and all the other owners at the event are the kind of enthusiastic supporters that any auto manufacturer would love to have.

Chrysler did its best to show its appreciation by taking the wraps off the 2009 Dodge Challenger SE Rallye at the festival. The Challenger SE Rallye features a fuel-efficient 3.5-liter V-6, a responsive five-speed automatic transmission with Auto Stick, dual body stripes and more. You can learn more on the Rallye by going here.

Drifting champ Samuel Hubinette, aka The Crazy Swede, was there with his 2009 Dodge Mopar Drift Challenger.

This event looks like it will only get bigger and better.

Thanks to Rich Truesdell at www.AutomotiveTraveler.com for the great pics. You can see more of his pics at his site. We'll have our own video of the festival on the blog shortly.