With his job and the company's future on the line, Chrysler CEO Tom LaSorda has decided to personally run the automaker's beleaguered sales and marketing division.

"I'm your new sales and marketing guy," LaSorda told 600 cheering sales and marketing staffers last week in a town hall-style meeting.

It's a make-or-break move for LaSorda, a manufacturing guy by training, but he has little choice after a disastrous year that culminated in the abrupt departure of sales and marketing chief Joe Eberhardt following a near-revolt by dealers.

LaSorda and his two top sales executives, Mike Manley and Steven Landry, are working on two top priorities: Repair relations with dealers and drastically reduce the "sales bank," vehicles that are built without dealer orders.

At times this year, Chrysler had as many as 100,000 unassigned new vehicles stacked on lots across Metro Detroit and elsewhere. LaSorda promised this week to get it down to the low five figures by year end.

LaSorda, 52, also is working on a restructuring plan to be unveiled early next year to return Chrysler to profitability after it lost $1.5 billion in the third quarter. LaSorda's goal is to reduce per-vehicle costs by $1,000.

It's not clear how much more time the bosses at DaimlerChrysler AG will give LaSorda.

The New York Times speculated Friday that LaSorda might not last much longer as Chrysler's CEO. Chrysler officials said the report was off base.

But rumors persist that DaimlerChrysler CEO Dieter Zetsche is exploring bringing back former Chrysler executive Wolfgang Bernhard, now with Volkswagen AG, as the top executive at Chrysler.

Given the urgency of the situation, LaSorda decided to take a hands-on approach to sales and marketing. "It is absolutely good practice and predictable that he would involve himself day to day until this thing is resolved," said Jim Sanfilippo, an automotive marketing analyst with AMCI in West Bloomfield. "What he's showing is the buck stops here."

LaSorda's decision to step into the breach and essentially do two jobs recalls similar moves by his boss, Zetsche, and General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner. After becoming CEO last year, Zetsche decided to run the company's struggling Mercedes unit. For several months earlier this year, Wagoner not only ran all of GM, but also took charge of GM's staggering North American operations.

LaSorda has his work cut out for him. Even with industry-leading incentives, Chrysler's sales are down 7.7 percent this year, and its model lineup is still tilted toward gas-thirsty trucks and SUVs. Chrysler's marketing, once a strong suit, has been spotty at best. Some of the new Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles coming to market are selling well, but others have fallen flat.

In recent weeks, LaSorda has met with dealers to let them know he will personally manage sales and marketing.

At a recent meeting with Detroit-area dealers, LaSorda told the group, "Hey guys, I'm your guy now. We have made some mistakes but we have to fix it," recalled Carl Galeana, owner of Galeana Automotive Group in Warren.

Galeana said LaSorda certainly has a lot to learn about sales and marketing but gives him high marks as a leader. "I will follow Tom LaSorda," he said.

In an interview with The Detroit News on Friday, Landry and Manley said their orders from LaSorda are clear -- repair relations with dealers and work to help them become more profitable.

Landry and Manley said the company is moving to a system where dealers order vehicles they want and Chrysler delivers them. In the past two years, the automaker has often overbuilt vehicles, pushing dealers to increase orders.

"What we will do is make sure that we have a better balance in terms of sales rate and stock than we have had through the second and third quarters of this year," Manley said.

They also promised to tweak a volume-based bonus program that has been controversial among some dealers, making it more consistent and achievable.

"My whole focus is U.S. retail," LaSorda said at the company's holiday party for the media Thursday. "Internationally we're up 14 percent year over year, Canada's in good shape, Mexico's up. So it's U.S. retail, and that's virtually 100 percent of my time almost in this second job I took on."

Landry, who heads sales and field operations, and Manley, who handles sales strategy and dealer operations, skipped the party Thursday to meet with dealers.

"We have already started the work to build the trust back and it starts with bringing the stock level down," Landry said. "The key thing I said to the dealers last night was that the confidence and trust that we will get back will happen over time It will have to happen from the action that we do here and in the field."

Many dealers are just as eager for a fresh start.

"They have to win back dealer trust," said Jim Quinlan, a Dodge dealer from Knoxville, Tenn. "We have endured the worst 12 months of management I have ever seen, maybe with the exception of Mitsubishi."

While dealers lined up against Eberhardt, they have been supportive of Landry and Manley.

"(LaSorda) has two capable people," said Dan Frost, owner of a Chrysler Jeep dealership in Southfield. "They're both young, ambitious, career-oriented men. It's fun to see the rebirth of the upper management at Chrysler. I hope and I think they are going to achieve greatness again."

A big focus will be lowering incentives. Chrysler launched a dealer cash program in December. Some vehicles, such as the Ram full-size pickup, can have discounts of up to $10,000. LaSorda said the key is getting 2006 models sold and newer 2007 models on the road.

"If you don't have a lot of 2006 on the ground, you can take incentives down," LaSorda said.