A lot of people here are making assumptions about the future of Chrysler that may not prove to be correct by the time Nissan trucks start rolling out of "Dodge" plants. Hint: this question about whether there's two different trucks probably overestimates the number of full-size truck brands by one.

 

Once again, you bring a reasonable prespective to the discussion.

I think the pick-up truck market, not to mention the eitire vehicle manufacturing landscape is going to see huge changes in a very short period of time.

 

AE offers his opinion, as usual.

http://www.autoextremist.com/

Worth a read.

 

What about...next RAM becomes next Nissan Titan. Town and Country becomes Quest. Jeep gets folded in and everything else goes away.

 

Surely you can't be implying that the Ram goes away. If we accept some kind of merger/acquisition in Chrysler/Nissan's future, the idea would be to keep the strongest brands from each. Ram is undoubtedly a stronger brand than Titan (just like Caravan is stronger than Quest). No sane person would throw away a 300k/year nameplate for one that does about one-quarter of that. Not even Ghosn.

Or if you're implying that there is no next-gen Titan, then the wording of that article is all wrong. In fact the whole article is unnecessary. But that would definitely be the logical choice.

 

The key is to produce units at a profit and to produce units that make the most profit per the investment required.

Decisions are never as simple as "Town & Country" outsells "Quest" so we kill the Quest and keep teh T&C.

 

Titan and Quest are weak brands compared to Ram and Caravan/TC. If the 2 companies were merged you would drop Titan that sells 30,000 and keep Ram that sells 300,000. Keep the top sellers get rid of the poor ones.

 

That's a very short-sighted and simplistic way to make a decision which was the point of my prior post.

I'm not saying you are wrong but number of units sold is meaningless if you aren't making a profit selling them.

GM and Ford and Chrysler sells far, more vehicles than Nissan but eithe rof those three would LOVE to have Nissan's profits for '07 (or for several of the prior years as well).

Obviously the reasons for profit/loss are complicated but the point is that it is far more complicated than selling more units.

 

I think this story would normally just be dismissed as just another automotive co-op with an interesting twist. But when you have a Cerberus owned Chrysler and a Ghosn led Nissan and their histories it takes on new importance.

We all knew at the moment that Cerberus took over Chrysler that they we’re probably not setting up for the long haul. And Mr. Ghosn has shown his interest in aligning with a NA brand. And so when there are possibilities that Chrysler would help build a Nissan truck and Nissan a Chrysler car one can only think this may be more than just an joint auto project like GM-Toyota on the Matrix/Vibe.

Ghosn may also be running a bit over his head as some of his tricks are not working like they did in the past and there will probably be a call to have him appoint new leadership of Nissan while he is pulled back to Renault. It would be like him to attempt a major move to partner with Chrysler or more for his legacy. Chrysler is ripe and what better way to gain desired market share in NA than with an entrenched automaker. Think of a Renault-Nissan-Chrysler alliance.
-Pure speculation on my part.

As for the deal I think it makes sense from a business standpoint. This probably doesn’t mean that the Ram is better than the Titan or that Chrysler is better and building them than Nissan but that the Titan needs a redesign and the new Ram is done. The Titan is a fine truck but the competition has passed it up. The new Silverado, Tundra and now Ram has moved past it. The new F150 will join the fight soon and probably raise the bar again. So if you’re Nissan and the Titan needs a complete redesign to compete and you know the NA truck market is probably shrinking why spend all the cash to maybe build a truck that will compete or join up with a company that has already made the cost sacrifice and is admittedly probably more apt at building that type of product.
Offer up a small car that Nissan probably does better and it makes the deal even for both companies. And it establishes ties for potential future deals.

 

I don't know that the Ram name goes away; I don't know that the Titan name goes away. What I do think is that we're going to be dealing with a far different full-size truck market come next decade, and there will be a lot of pricing pressure on the lower-volume producers.

Both the Ram and the Titan are massively struggling in a drastically weakening market. It's a bit silly to think that either name is untouchable under such circumstances. I think the big question to ask would be: does the Ram name mean anything if the Chrysler/Dodge brand goes away?

 

All other things being equal, my bet would be on the Ram nameplate being potentially more profitable than the Titan nameplate.

 

I don't think the Chrysler/Dodge brand will go away. Certainly many of its models are damaged and not worth salvaging at this point. But there are some that still have considerable equity in the market, including Ram and Caravan. Sure, Ram doesn't sell as well as Silverado or F-Series, but they are still a very high volume in today's market and quite profitable. And have a loyal following. Any company planning a merger/acquisition would be foolish to just throw them away. Otherwise, what is the point of merging with Dodge/Chrysler?

Rationally speaking, the Titan brand goes away. It has had minimal impact and could easily be considered a failure. But Ghosn is probably too proud to admit that. If it was me orchestrating a merger of Nissan/Chrysler, Titan would go. But maybe because it would require little investment to spin a new Titan off the Ram platform, they can save face and keep it around. To me it makes far less sense than, say, keeping both Chevy and GMC, but pride makes people do irrational things.

 

Well I guess that's why Chrysler is so profitable.

 

I think Nissan sees a profit in getting what's useful for them out of distressed goods.

 

Well they were before MB practically raped them of everything..before the "Merger of equals" Mother Mopar was the most profitable of the big 3 car companies..10 years ago they had everything going for them and were small enough to put products out that caught the attention of everyone..AND make money out of it..

Now..they have operationg loss just like the other 2..kinda hard to make money or design things with hammydowns from MB and cost cutting to line the pockets of the MB..and correct me if I am wrong but does Nissan have to deal with the UAW? If not then thats another big problem that Chrylser shares with the the other 2 that is why the profits are not there..

I suspect that RAM being built in Mexico does not have that problem with the UAW..so the Titan being built there along side it would not be a problem with the unions..but to say that one or the other is going away?
Would Crysler scrape the volume of RAM over the profit of Titan? especially when they are selling 10-1? And if they are in being built without UAW problems are they not making profits on the RAM..

I still see it more for the future to be a along the lines of Chevy GMC, Vibe Matrix, Vette XLR..than turning the Ram's numbers over to Titan..