What's new at Chrysler? Not much

What's new at Chrysler? Not much
http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/25/autos/chysler_fiat/index.htm?postversion=2009092504

Chrysler: Check engine now

Out of bankruptcy but not out of the woods, the automaker is struggling
with a stale product line-up and not much new in sight.

By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNNMoney.com senior writer
September 25, 2009: 4:02 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Three months after coming through a
federally-financed bankruptcy, the new Chrysler Group still faces
serious trouble with no quick solution in sight.

The carmaker may have been given a sleek and shiny new balance sheet,
but the products on the showroom floor are the same stale cars and
trucks from before and there's not much new to look forward to.

In the hyper-competitive American car market, that empty product
pipeline is potentially disastrous. Newly designed and engineered cars
and trucks are what keep automakers in the game.

"It's the most important thing," industry analyst Jesse Toprak of
Truecar.com said of new product offerings. "It's the lifeline."

Besides a new heavy-duty version of the well-regarded Dodge Ram pick-up
on sale now, there's nothing new coming from any of Chrysler Group's
brands before the middle of next year.

"I think they will run out of steam quickly," Matt Stone, executive
editor of Motor Trend magazine, said of Chrysler Group. "How long could
they prop it up with color changes and incentives? Another year or two,
maybe."

New car and truck models are important because consumers are always
interested in the newest stuff, Toprak said, but all-new products with
the latest engineering and the trendiest designs take years to develop
-- time which many experts say Chrysler does not have.

To try to turn its own situation around before it's too late, Chrysler
Group is expected to release a new revitalization plan in November.
Interviews published recently by the industry newspaper Automotive News
provide some insight into what Chrysler Group executives might be thinking.

Under the new plan, both the Chrysler and Dodge brands will undergo
serious image makeovers.

Dodge will continue to be a performance-oriented brand but now focus
more on fun-to-drivequalities than on raw engine power. Chrysler,
meanwhile, will move upscale. Way upscale, setting its sights on
competing with Cadillac, BMW and Mercedes.

A Chrysler spokesman would not officially confirm anything that was said
in the Automotive News report.

When pressed by reporter at the Frankfurt Motor Show recently about
Chrysler Group's dry product pipeline, Fiat and Chrysler CEO Sergio
Marchionne replied "Who says?" and told reporters to "wait until November."

New directions: In order to crank out new products quickly, Chrysler
will likely depend on Fiat for much of the vehicle engineering needed.
The Italian automaker's CEO now runs the show in Detroit after it took a
20% ownership stake in the new Chrysler Group.

Dodge's new image as a more fuel-efficient, but still sporty, car brand
could benefit from Fiat engineering, said James Bell, an industry
analyst with the Web site KBB.com. Fiat is well known for building just
that sort of product and Dodge will only be following a larger trend in
the U.S. away from big cars and big engines.

"I think it's where the business is going to go, anyway," he said.

While he agrees this strategy could work for Dodge, Motor Trend's Stone
thinks a quicker path to profit for Dodge would be to just ditch cars
altogether.

"I still think the best strategy for Dodge would still be to become an
all-truck division," he said.

Gary Fong, who heads the Chrysler brand, as well as handling sales for
all of the Chrysler Group brands, told Automotive News he wants the
Chrysler brand to reach toward the high-end luxury car market. He
described the goal as "a notch above Cadillac, a notch above Lincoln."

That idea is more controversial.

"Chrysler did used to be an upscale brand, but that is so ancient
history," said Michelle Krebs, a senior industry analyst with the
automotive Web site Edmunds.com.

Even in those days, Motor Trend's Stone said, Chrysler wasn't really in
the luxury big leagues. Back in the 1950s, '60s and '70s -- remember
Ricardo Montalban boasting of "soft Corinthian leather" -- it was more
of a value-oriented alternative.

That's something Chrysler could shoot for again, he said, as it did with
the current Chrysler 300, a car that offers luxury car looks for
mass-market money.

"I think there's people proving there's room in that space," he said.
Hyundai, for instance, is succeeding with its new Genesis sedan.

Under the best of circumstances, a luxury-leading Chrysler brand will
take a long time to build, said Bell.

"To do what they're trotting out here is at minimum a decade-long
project," he said, "and that's with killer product."

Another problem is that Fiat could do little to help Chrysler build real
luxury cars, said Stone. Even Fiat's upper-end European brands like
Alfa-Romeo and Lancia don't have cars that could readily be turned into
American-style luxury cruisers, he said. Chrysler will have to start
from nothing.

"You're talking scratch-built stuff here."

Gary Dilts, senior vice president of global automotive operations at
J.D. Power and Associates, sees luxury aspirations for Chrysler brand
cars as more of a vague, long term target than something anyone
realistically expects in the near term.

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't shoot for it," he said.

"If there was ever a time to get out of jail, it's now," Dilts said. To
top of page

 

Can someone explain why it's gonna take 2 years to take a Fiat-500 and
slap a Chyrysler badge on it?

Ah, so they're going to bring back the 300n concept on the LH platform
are they?

They must have heard me.

And why would that be?

Would it be because under Daimler and Cerebus, that Chrysler axed most
of their design and concept engineers?

That is where Chrysler would have been by now if they weren't acquired
and gutted by Daimler.

The 300n would have done it for them starting in 2004.

Did that bitch see the 300n concept car at the 2000 Detroit auto show?

Chrysler had the prototype for that effort 9 years ago. It was called
the 300n. It could have been in production by 2004, and by 2008
Chrysler's image as a hi-end brand would have been restored.

The 300n was a killer product. Everyone at the 2000 Detroit auto show
who saw it was asking the Chrysler rep's when they were going to build
it. The Chrysler rep's at the 2001 Detroit auto show were being asked
where did the 300n concept go? When will it be built? Then the 300C
was shown at the New York Auto show in the spring of 2004, people were
still asking the rep's what happened to the 300n - and what's with this
Tonka-toy you're calling the 300c ?

No shit. That's obvious.

No you're not you fucking idiots!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look at the 300n concept car from the 2000 Detroit auto show you god
damn pieces of shit!

Chrysler had the production-ready prototype to enter the hi-end luxury
car market back in 2000 with the 300n concept car, based on the LH
platform (which could easily accomodate rear wheel drive).

Gary Dilts is a fucking asswipe.

 

Chrysler did a HELL OF A LOT OF THINGS RIGHT in the 1990s with ALL of
their product lines. Then here came Daimler and tampered with it to
their liking, doing more harm than good. The 300 was already too far
along to change the styling, but they added "last-gen" Mercedes chassis
stuff to it, Mercedes electronics, and other "hidden" things to
"Mercedes-ize" Chryslers. Unfortunately, even when GM added
Asian/Euro-style cruise control switches on some of their cars, a few
years later they went back to buttons on the steering wheel.

Then they took the Chrysler Citadel concept and made it into the
Pacifica "wagon". The Citadel led to the Buick Centienne concept
"wagon". IF Chrysler had went with the Citadel, it would have been the
FIRST car-based crossover utility on the market, plus at a lower cost
due to the shared chassis with the LH cars. Instead, Daimler wanted it
on the full size van platform, which added weight and such. The
Pacifica is a great vehicle, but too bulky and heavy for good fuel
economy.

Then here came Cerberus, with grand plans of "Rebuilding an Ameican
Icon" . . . along with many high-priced former Toyota/Lexus people who
obviously didn't know a whole heck of a lot about the car business . . .
and it's history. The best thing Cerberus did was to get the former
Chrysler people from the LH car days to come back. But too little, too
late. I suspect that Cerberus didn't really know how much Daimler had
"meddled" in Chrysler's product mix and such to create "dull" cars from
potentially great ones. Thank heavens the new Ram pickup happened!

In many respect, "stale product lines" is an over-used phrase. "Stale"
can be variable in its interpretation. In reality, many high volume
vehicles are "stale", but nobody seems to notice. Kind of like all
modern engines allegedly needing to be overhead camshaft engines.
Anything else is "anitique", except that you never head that "antique
architecture" comment about Corvettes or Vipers, which have the same
"cam-in-block" architecture as prior engine designs did.

There are usually few things that can be changed quickly and easily from
one model year to the next. I still believe that there are many more
STALE designs and vehicles in the import brands than anybody would
really admit to! Still, you only see that word attached to USA brand
vehicles!

Regards,

C-BODY

 

You got that right.

You got that wrong.

Chrysler was showing the 300N concept car at the 2000 Detroit Auto
show. It was a gorgeous car, based on the LH platform, with a V8 and
RWD as the top-end model. It would have been in production for the 2005
model year had it not been for Daimler, who rushed the piece-of-shit
LX-based 300 cars into production - stuffing them full of Mercedes
suspension and transmissions, making them weigh 2 tons.

The Germans at Daimler wrecked Chrysler, and now the Italians at Fiat
are going to bury it.

But it was Bob Eaton and the criminal Chrysler board of directors, circa
late 1998, that deserve a special place in hell for putting Chrysler on
the road to death while giving themselves golden parachutes.

The only thing that can save Chrysler (and this is assuming they're
still alive in a few years time) is some combination of Kerkorian,
Iacocca, and Magna.

 

one of the reason Eaton was looking for a partner company such as Mercedes
was due to the fact they spent a year and lots of money on legal fees
fighting off Kerkorian from buying it all up and taking it private. so he
thought hooking up with a partner company would have stopped that from
happening again. or something like that.

 

1995-1997: Kerkorian's failed takeover attempt pressured Eaton to find a
partner


April 30, 2009 - 12:01 am ET
On April 11, 1995, Chrysler Corp. Chairman Bob Eaton, alone in a
company-owned apartment in New York, called billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, the
automaker's biggest shareholder. It was 7:30 p.m. in New York, 4:30 p.m. at
Kerkorian's Las Vegas office. Kerkorian owned 10 percent of Chrysler
stock -- 36 million shares. During the two-minute phone call, Kerkorian told
Eaton that the next day, he would offer to buy all other Chrysler stock and
take the company private.

Eaton expected the news, after several lower-level overtures. He had
ordered Chrysler's lawyers to prepare a spirited defense.

Incredibly, the two titans of industry failed to communicate on the
most basic point. Kerkorian wanted to launch a leveraged buyout financed by
Chrysler's own cash. Chrysler management would take part in the buyout and
run the privately held company.

But Eaton and his top managers saw Kerkorian's plan as a hostile
takeover. They were determined to fight.

According to the 2000 book Taken for a Ride: How Daimler-Benz Drove
Off With Chrysler -- an account of the Daimler-Chrysler merger by Bill
Vlasic and Bradley Stertz -- Eaton later claimed he told Kerkorian: "You
know what I have to do. You know we can't join you on this."

But Kerkorian insisted that Eaton had pledged to stay neutral. He
quoted Eaton: "We can't say, hey, it's the right thing to do, but I won't
oppose it."

That phone call was Eaton's last chance to head off the takeover bid.
On April 12, Kerkorian offered $22.8 billion for Chrysler. Eaton and the
company bitterly opposed the bid, which dragged on for almost 10 months
before the two sides reached a truce.

'Rifle Right'

The protagonists could hardly have been more different. The
mild-mannered Eaton was an engineer by training, a buttoned-down corporate
conservative who had risen through the ranks of General Motors before he
joined Chrysler in 1992. Associates say Eaton was tough-minded and
determined, but disliked direct confrontation.

Kerkorian, now 91, was the son of Armenian immigrants. An amateur
boxer who earned the nickname "Rifle Right" as a teenager in California, he
also was a skilled negotiator. In his youth, he persuaded the owner of a
flight school and dairy to let him milk cows and shovel manure in exchange
for flying lessons.

Kerkorian took risks to get ahead. During World War II, he flew 33
Mosquito bombers from the factory in Canada across the treacherous North
Atlantic to air bases in Scotland. Many delivery pilots died, but Kerkorian
survived. After the war, he used the money he earned from those flights to
set up an air charter business.

Given the personality differences between Eaton and Kerkorian, perhaps
it's no surprise that the Chrysler takeover war was long and bitter.
Kerkorian finally agreed to halt his bid and not try again for at least five
years. In return, Chrysler bought back more of its stock, raising the value
of Kerkorian's shares.

Eaton had prevailed, for the moment. But the experience convinced him
that Chrysler was too vulnerable as an independent and needed a strong
partner. His truce with Kerkorian triggered a chain of events that led to
Chrysler's merger with Daimler-Benz three years later.

Kerkorian's demands

In the meantime, Eaton worried about Kerkorian's constant demands on
Chrysler to buy back stock. Kerkorian had ratcheted up the pressure by
building an alliance with former Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca and hiring
former Chrysler executive Jerry York.

Senior Chrysler executives observed that Eaton was increasingly
preoccupied with mounting an anti-takeover defense. He would raise the issue
in staff meetings on unrelated topics.

In his eagerness to fend off Kerkorian, Eaton found a buyer --
Daimler-Benz -- that paid generously for Chrysler. But its beneficence came
at a price.

Daimler ultimately wrecked Chrysler's entrepreneurial corporate
culture, former Chrysler Executive Vice President Francois Castaing
insisted.

Eaton "gave away the company to the Germans," Castaing said. "He
created a dynamic that destroyed Chrysler."

 

What you've quoted so far doesn't mention that Kerkorian's demands were
largely satisfied.

He wanted to see the dividends raised and see the share split and get a
seat on the board.

He wanted to own 20%, and eventually he owned 14%. He wanted Chrysler
to agressively re-purchase shares, which it did.

And what's more -> in 1996 he signed a 5-year "stand-still" deal where
he got a seat on the board in exchange for not buying any more Chrysler
shares.

So Kerkorian's threat to take over Chrysler was over by early 1996.
Then in 1998, Eaton announces the "Merger of Equals" with Daimler.
Kerkorian votes his shares IN FAVOR of the merger. He later finds out
that it was a take-over because of a comment made by Joergen Schrempp in
the financial times.

There was absolutely no pressure coming from Kerkorian in the 1997 -
1998 timeframe that would be motivating Eaton to hook Chrysler up with a
"white knight". In fact, Eaton would have known that his time at
Chrysler would be over if it was merged with Daimer. Eaton and the
board knew they were selling Chrysler off, and what's worse - they knew
that Chrysler shares would take a dive once Chrysler was de-listed from
the S&P (as it would have to be once it was no longer a US company).
They knew that many fund managers would have to dump Chrysler stock
because it was de-listed from the S&P.

And they got access to Chrysler's $10 billion in cash, which Chrysler
was going to use for new car design, but instead it was pillaged by
Daimler.

And the emptied Chrysler's bank accounts while they were at it.

Which is why Eaton is going to hell.

 

i read somewhere that Mercedes was ripe to be bought out by Porsche then too
so they were dying to make themselves too big and too unappetizing for
Porsches taste.

By the way, wasn't Eaton the one hand picked by Iacocca to replace him and
he know says it was a big mistake?

 

http://www.allpar.com/ed/2006/purge.html


sounds like an employee writing