I told you so.

When Daimler Benz purchased Chrysler, I said that I would not believe
it until I saw a Penastar on a Benz.

I was right!

This "merger" between the 2 companies made no reason to be except one.
Greed.

The greed of Chrysler's management and shareholders who wanted to get
in on the stock market boom of the 1990's

As, for Daimler Benz's reason for buying Chrysler?

Too much beer during the negotiations?

No matter what the reason however, the Germans took Chrysler and drove
it over a brick wall. First by not shearing technology, then by
letting Chrysler have MB's old technology while they kept the new
stuff for them self.

Finally, like most American and European companies, when the problems
got bad, they bailed.

If an Asian company controlled Chrysler, they would look upon
Chrysler's current problems and see them as a part of the normal
fluctuations in the automotive industries.

In addition, there is another factor in Daimler Benz (I assume that
they will return to their old name - a boom at lease for printer and
sign painters!) decision to rid themselves of Chrysler.

In the fatherland, Chrysler was looked upon in the same light as the
American GI who married into some aristocratic German family. In other
words, not good enough for their daughter (Mercedes), and now relieved
that a divorce is pending.

 

It was Robert Eaton leading the charge...Iacocca's "biggest mistake of
my life."

I think they saw the US as a failing industrial country (true), and
the Japs were in line to take over the whole US auto market, so they
thought they'd get their slice of the pie before the Chinese got in
there. It's typical German arrogance, much like the typical Japanese
arrogance that cause them to tank their own economy. Note that both
these small but arrogant nations lost a major war against the
US...then. They had the bravada...we had the factories and workers.
We don't have 'em anymore, that's for sure.

Not the problem. ALL of Benz's "technology" is overengineered by
manic kraut engineers whose whole raison d'être is to engineer the
crap out of things á la GM's Frigidaire Division in the late '50s
through the '70s. DC doomed post-merger products with overcomplicated
systems prone to failure that only the Germans could love, similar to
what's wrong with all of VW/Audi's product line. Americans are too
stupid and lazy to maintain their vehicles well, and thus it was a
recipe for reliability disaster. Per CU, ALL new Ford product
platforms are now more reliable than anything from DC.

Good allegory. Also, well-off Germans think nothing of spending
thousands on car repair and maintenance, whereas US counterparts retch
at the thought of an oil change and are too ham fisted to do the job
themselves. Chrysler's engineering maxim of "KISS" served them well
with the hoary K-car chassis...not a great design and one with much
cheapness, but one which would keep running under tons of deferred
maintenance and abuse until the thing would finally die. All that
went away under DC. I saw how bad things got with DC reliability, and
now couldn't be given a DC product.

It's over. With idiots like Quayle and liars like Snow heading up
Cerberus (the three headed dog who guards the gates of Hell in Greek
mythology, for those with not-so-good educations), it's a "strip 'n
flip" operation designed to make the principals of that outfit
richer...NOT to build better cars or develop new technology.

Iacocca's got it right in his new book: "Can't anyone around here run
a car company?"

 

Felt they needed a mainstream maker. BMW tried that too, with Rover,
and ended up giving Rover away to a private group for a pound or two.
Porsche seems to be trying that now by buying up VW stock.

But look at the reverse too. Ford's purchase of Aston-Martin, Volvo,
and Jaguar -- all losing money. GM's purchase of Saab -- losing
money. Ford has now sold off most of A-M, and GM has sold off Subaru
and most of Isuzu.

No luxury-brand is going to put its current technology in brands
costing half as much. Even Toyota has many features exclusive to
Lexus.

Perhaps, but that's because Asian investors tend to look at the long
haul, whereas American ones look at just the next quarter. Toyota,
for example, pays very low dividends, but investors have pushed its
stock value up to where it's worth far more than GM.

Like of like Rover vis-a-vis BMW, as I mentioned.

 

As DC said they bought Chrysler to get higher parts volume to lower
costs. That worked somewhat but also failed somewhat.
DC also said they were going to lift Chrysler prices to produce more
profit. That worked somewhat but also failed somewhat.

Unfortunately DC lost many of Chryslers mid sized LH buyers, the 300
didn't interest many of them. Here in Vancouver, BC a long term Chrysler
sold his Chrysler dealership because of the LH buyers leaving and low
300 sales. He kept his Toyota dealership.
The 300 has sold poorly on the west coast from Oregon to BC.

 

The main stated reasons at the time were an allegedly complimentary
product fit, and access to the state of the art Auburn Hills design
facility. At the time of the merger, Mercedes Benz had one of the
slowest, most behind-the-curve, antiquated design-to-production cycles
of any major car manufacturer on the planet, and it was seriously
hurting their ability to compete with companies that had already
invested heavily in high-tech engineering design facilities.