Chrysler she's a changing...

[Brock Samson]

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/04/16/chrysler-in-talks-with-fiat-too/

from auto blog..

Chrysler now has a partnership with China-based automaker Chery to rebadge a small car for the South American market, a partnership with Volkswagen to build VW-badged minivans, and a brand new deal with Nissan in which it will supply the Japanese automaker a full-size truck in exchange for a new small car. Rumor has it that the Cerberus-owned automaker isn't done shaking hands quite yet.

The latest partnership may involve Italian automaker Fiat, as reported by the German newspaper Handelsblatt. According to the paper, the deal with Fiat would involve freeing up some of Chrysler's production capacity in the U.S. for Fiat to build Alfa Romeos here. We're not sure what Chrysler would get out of the deal besides money, but Fiat would accomplish a step that makes reintroducing Alfa Romeo cars in the U.S. that much easier. Chrysler-built Alfa Romeos, though? We've seen Chrysler-built Maseratis in the past (Maserati TC ring a bell?), which didn't work out too well. Hopefully this time, things will be different.

[Ghoste]

Wasn't the Maserati killer the high price?

[Brock Samson]

yeah it was a freakin K-car with a '57 t-bird porthole and leather interior..



"The asking price of $35,000 was roughly double that of the Chrysler LeBaron convertible,"
from allpar..  http://www.allpar.com/model/tc.html

also the car was introduced two years later then planned, just like all the DCX models of the past 8 or so years..

[Ghoste]

Now I forget, was it made domestically or in Europe?

[Brock Samson]

http://www.autoextremist.com/current/

[hemihead]

yeah it was a freakin K-car with a '57 t-bird porthole and leather interior..



"The asking price of $35,000 was roughly double that of the Chrysler LeBaron convertible,"
from allpar..  http://www.allpar.com/model/tc.html

also the car was introduced two years later then planned, just like all the DCX models of the past 8 or so years..

Actually it was a P - Body . It was a little different cosmetic wise from the Lebaron . The big thing about the car was the 16 Valve Head .

[Mike DC]

 
Too bad we can't get them to make some reproduction '69 Hemi Chargers for sale to the Chinese market.  We could just hijack the boat ourselves. 

If they were headed for the Chinese market, then the cars probably wouldn't even have to obey any of our modern Federal safety & emission & MPG laws  . . .


   

[Aero426]

http://www.autoextremist.com/current/

And some thought being owned by Daimler was bad and the end of that relationship was liberating...

[68charger383]

On a side note, stopped in at a pretty high volume SoCal Dodge dealer today. He told me that with the price of gas the truck sales are dead and the v8s are are staying on the lot, but the v6s are doing well, no big surprise there...offered to sell me an SRT Charger for $8K off the sticker.

He also told me that a lot of dealers are only selling 4-5 cars over the course of the weekend....They used to sell 30-40

[Ghoste]

Perfect timing for the new Challenger.

[hemihead]

Perfect timing for the new Challenger.

Didn't Uncle Lee say as he was leaving Chrysler that " They are going to do it again "  ?

[Mike DC]

 
Yeah, most of the US auto industry is about to have another coronary when suddenly economy cars (read: foreign) become the whole market.  It's gonna be 1974 all over again.


I have no sympathy.  The coming of this situation has been blatantly obvious for at least a decade already.  They've been making all their black ink by selling 5500-pound 9mpg trucks to every family in America for the last ten years straight.  If they couldn't predict that this situation was unsustainable in the long-term then it's their own fault.   

 

[miller]

if you guys didnt hear... they are killing off the viper too!

i dont know about you guys, but im gonna miss that thing 

[Charger1973]

Oh man that brings back memories of the time I picked up these girls in a Maserati...  damn what a crazy ass night.   

[Todd Wilson]

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/04/16/chrysler-in-talks-with-fiat-too/

from auto blog..

Chrysler now has a partnership with China-based automaker Chery to rebadge a small car for the South American market, a partnership with Volkswagen to build VW-badged minivans, and a brand new deal with Nissan in which it will supply the Japanese automaker a full-size truck in exchange for a new small car. Rumor has it that the Cerberus-owned automaker isn't done shaking hands quite yet.

The latest partnership may involve Italian automaker Fiat, as reported by the German newspaper Handelsblatt. According to the paper, the deal with Fiat would involve freeing up some of Chrysler's production capacity in the U.S. for Fiat to build Alfa Romeos here. We're not sure what Chrysler would get out of the deal besides money, but Fiat would accomplish a step that makes reintroducing Alfa Romeo cars in the U.S. that much easier. Chrysler-built Alfa Romeos, though? We've seen Chrysler-built Maseratis in the past (Maserati TC ring a bell?), which didn't work out too well. Hopefully this time, things will be different.

Its mostly gonna be a good thing. They are gonna build the vans for VW. They will build a truck for Nissan. They are already doing it for Sterling. You will also see VW diesel technology start to show up in Chrysler cars here in the states. They are already running diesel engines in all the vehicles in Europe now. 50mpg+ Calibers and other things. This is what they need in the states is some serious MPG vehicles. The Nissan truck deal will be built down in Mexico. Little if any Rams will be made there for the states so that puts American trucks built  in America.


Todd

[Plumcrazy]

yeah it was a freakin K-car with a '57 t-bird porthole and leather interior..



"The asking price of $35,000 was roughly double that of the Chrysler LeBaron convertible,"
from allpar..  http://www.allpar.com/model/tc.html

also the car was introduced two years later then planned, just like all the DCX models of the past 8 or so years..

Actually it was a P - Body . It was a little different cosmetic wise from the Lebaron . The big thing about the car was the 16 Valve Head .

It was a shortened J body.  The P body was the Sundance/Shadows.
My boss still has one of those cars with the 3.0 liter engine.

[PocketThunder]

if you guys didnt hear... they are killing off the viper too!

i dont know about you guys, but im gonna miss that thing 

Me too, I just saw a black one drive by last night. 

Well if its going to be 1974 again, then i am getting ready to start buying up a bargain deal on a Viper.  I'll take a '96 RT/10 please.

[Aero426]

As mentioned, part of the problem with the Chrysler Maserati was that there were a lot of delays getting it to production.   By the time they were readily available, you could also buy a Lebaron convertible which looked very similar and cheaper.    

I got a good look under one for a couple of days back then.  The front and rear frame rails were all Chrysler production pieces, but the whole center section of the unibody was Italian.   The center section is nothing like a K-car or J-car I can tell you that for sure.    I remember seeing those TC's being blown out at a dealer in Milwaukee towards the end of 1990 or early '91.   They had several and you could buy one right around $19,000.  The original MSRP was  $35,000 on those. 

[Kevin68N71]

 
Yeah, most of the US auto industry is about to have another coronary when suddenly economy cars (read: foreign) become the whole market.  It's gonna be 1974 all over again.


I have no sympathy.  The coming of this situation has been blatantly obvious for at least a decade already.  They've been making all their black ink by selling 5500-pound 9mpg trucks to every family in America for the last ten years straight.  If they couldn't predict that this situation was unsustainable in the long-term then it's their own fault.   

I don't fully agree.  I think its a mix of people, the companies AND government.

Government strangles the companies with CAFE standards, so all the cars are small.  You can't get a car with decent room, so people buy SUVs.  People have in their heads that big cars are for old people, and wagons are disgusting.  So no more full sized wagons after 96, and they had some great ones.  People flock to minivans until they are "uncool" like the wagons.  So more SUV purchases so people actually have some room.

The companies oblige.  They are in business to return investments to stockholders, not make small profit small cars because someone thinks it might be the right thing to do.  No one could predict the latest gas crunch.  So the "they should have seen this coming" statement is moot.

And whenever they DO bring a small car or something different to the market, you can bet our import loving press will rate it #7 out of a 7 car test, or have Toyota and Honda beat it only if by two points.  Face it, we are a fickle buying public.  Everyone wanted a new GTO right?  So they bring it out, and everyone complains that it looks too Pontiac, that it's too plain.  You mean, the original didn't look like a plain Tempest, and had a similar front end to all the other Pontiac models?  I certainly hope all the big talkers who say they are going to get a Challenger/Camaro etc put their money where their mouths are and don't do another GTO on us.

More proof in the pudding?  You STILL have people who wholesale believe that American cars are inferior to imports.  The fact that Buick of all cars has held some of the highest ranking quality of ALL cars for years, that Mercedes Benz has had quality issues for years, that Ford has tied Toyota for initial quality, etc, are all facts that many people ignore, and certainly the automotive press does.

The government wants even HIGHER CAFE ratings now.  Reason?  Oh, man-made "global warming", another piece of BS.  You can choose between that BS or the BS that we are "running out of oil" which, if you remember back, in 1970 thereabouts you had people screaming we only had 30 years left of oil.  Funny how that, as well as "global cooling", is quietly forgotten.

Ok, ok, rant off!

[moparstuart]

  i really like those cars and they are pretty cheap right now if you watch , I bought one for 200.00 no title and bad motor though .

[Ghoste]

Were they a Chrysler engine?

[Kevin68N71]

Were they a Chrysler engine?

Yes, as far as I know they were the same ol' 2.2 litre engine that they used in EVERYTHING (old Mitsubishi design).

The real upgrade was the interior, very Maserati leather.

[Brock Samson]

http://www.pickuptruck.com/html/stories/ramtough/2009-dodge-ram-designs-1.html
from pickuptruck.com with the hand off from Japolnik.com



  IMO: It seems to me that trucks like the powerwagon, large cars either sporty or luxurious like Chargers and Chryslers and of course the Jeep off road line seem to be the companies forte, small cars and gas sippers are done better by others, i guess clues from the past could be considered and brought into the discussion,.. for example maybe the cars would again be downsized, made front drive... imported and/or partnered with Asian or even European manufactures...
remember too, this isn't the first time Chrysler seems to be on the ropes... some of you might be too young to remember the Govt. bailout, "Buy a Car get a Check" or even the early sixties or mid '50s low points that spurred the forward look,.. A-bodies, minivans and K-cars, or the viper for that matter...
  they ain't out of the game yet, but need to get very busy and very creative.

[Mike DC]

 

In response to KEVIN68N1's post above:



I'm trying not to derail this into a global oil discussion and keep it centered on the auto industry.

But the situation with the huge SUVs & trucks in the 1990s & early 2000s was clearly not gonna last.  The big unpredictable anomaly here is not the recent gas crunch & raising CAFE standards now, it's that we had the looser situation for so long before that. 

The fact that trucks & SUVs were exempt from CAFE standards in the first place was because they weren't so commonly being used as normal passenger vehicles decades ago.  They were just beasts of burden in those days when the CAFE laws were written.   But then everyone in America started buying trucks when cars gradually got CAFE'd out of cool status.  Then Detriot started basically turning their truck lines into their new luxury car lines and selling tons of them to everyone. 



The entire last 15 years of huge-profit truck sales was basically just one giant loophole in the CAFE laws!  What kind of moron running an auto company in Detriot doesn't realize that sooner or later the govt was gonna close that loophole?   Detriot not only didn't plan for this eventuality (which was already getting very obvious 10 years ago), they even made the situation worse over time.




The SUV/truck boom basically dumped a huge load of cash into Detroit's laps that they couldn't have predicted was coming in 1990.  Everyone in America suddenly wanted to pay $10K over cost for truck lines that were already existing and were easily updated & optioned-up.  (And not only that, but here's the biggest cash-cow vehicle market to appear in 20 or 30 years, and they didn't even have any Japanese competition for it at all!  WTF?!?) 

Detroit had gotten itself into very serious trouble against Japan for 15 years in the later 1970s & 1980s, and then they unexpectedly won the friggin lottery with this 15-year-long truck/SUV boom.  I don't think there is any other way to view that situation. 

Detroit could have used that huge dose of unexpected truck money (which they should have realized was only buying time for them) to work on their existing problems.  They could have invested it into their struggling car lines to make them more favorable against the Japanese brands' reputations.   But NO-O-O . . . not Detriot.  They actually started paying LESS attention to the car lines.  They've shifted more of their attention even farther into pushing the truck lines during this time.  And of course that has really exacerbated the problem for them now that the cheap gas & too-low CAFE standards are suddenly gone.

[Aero426]

  i really like those cars and they are pretty cheap right now if you watch , I bought one for 200.00 no title and bad motor though .

All the trim has to be pricey expensive if you need it.  Sounds like a good parts car.