Now don't get me wrong, I am NOT a particularly huge Chrysler fan. But I am a huge fan of the American auto industry as a whole, and it completely sickens me what appears to be happening here...

Frankly, Chrysler's cars are not THAT bad. Poorly marketed, poorly built maybe...but consider the current lineup. Sure, its aging, but no worse than GMs. A Stratus R/T sedan can stand up next to a Grand Am or Alero, no problem. A Neon is a significantly newer and better (maybe not durability wise) than a Cavalier. I think the 300M and Concorde are beautiful cars. I am not so sure what the hell the problem is here...but obviously it is huge.

Did marketing fail? If you look at the core cars and compare them to GM's current offerings, they aren't so bad. SUVs like the Durango and Grand Cherokee are in much need of updating compared to GMs, but the cars? They're on par, and yet doing so much worse...

I drove a 4 cylinder, 5 speed Sebring Coupe a few weeks back, a new one. I would trade my Grand Am for it in a hearbeat. Nice quality interior, wisper quiet, smooth tranny and engine...I was impressed. And I don't like Chrysler. But if I was buying a new, inexpensive run-around car, and I didn't have a GM bias, a Sebring coupe would be my new car. And they're killing that model for '04

So to get back to the topic...what the hell are we gonna do with a U.S. Big Two? I think its coming. Just like in '87 when Chrysler bought out AMC, kept Jeep and dumped the rest...can't the same happen again? Who can buy Chrysler and save it??

When its all said and done, will it really just be Ford and GM? Unless something changes quick, I think it will be...I think its a disgrace what is happening, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

 

From where I sit, more American brands are better than less American brands.

If Chrysler gets bought out by another manufacturer...it will probably get disembowelled...like AMC did shortly after being purchased by Chrysler. Jeep survived because Chrysler didn't have an especially strong truck program. This time around, Jeep would probably be folded into an existing truck brand...and essentially lose it's identity.

As far as I can tell, Chrysler only has two ways to go and survive as a freestanding brand.

1) Schrempp puts his massive ego in check, and gets serious about letting Chrysler run itself. Lift the strangle hold and let 'em rip. Chrysler has already lost alot of good people, thanks to Schrempp, so even this will be an uphill battle.

Also, just a suggestion..... Schrempp could step down. If I were a DCX shareholder, I would DEMAND it.

2) Kerkorian's Tracinda corp. might try another takeover. They already own about 14% of DCX and recieved a 1/3 billion dollar settlement from DCX, for Schrempps' deception about the "merger". A takeover bid may come in the form of an outright purchase of the Chrysler division of Diamler (if DCX were ever to cut it's losses and spin it off)...or perhaps gaining a controlling interest in DCX itself. Off the top of my head...I'm not exactly sure on how many more shares that would require. But if Kerkorian can aquire another 15 or 20% of DCX....or at least get the owners of those shares to join him...it may be possible. Or better yet, if he can get a majority (51%)...pack your bags boys, the war is over, and he (or rather his group) is in a great position to run the show.


I see no other options if Chrysler is going to survive as real car company. Any other ideas?

 

That would so suck if Jeep disappeared. There is pretty much nothing out there that compares to the Wrangler that I would ever buy. It's definetly a class all of it's own.

 

I think Chyslers biggest issue problem right now is actually GM. In order to be competitive with GM in terms of rebates...howver thier business structure does not support making profit at very low margins per vehicle like GM does. I seriously believe this is why you see Chrysler not selling as much volume...they simply can;t afford to with thier current business structure. In not making any money after rebates Chrysler is starving itself of capital to redo models.

In reality I don't think Chryslers current linup is bad...The Intrepid and 300M are great carsevery bit as competent as an Impala or Taurus...they just have a bad rep. Is a Neon worse than Cavalier...I think not. And Jason's point on the Stratus was dead on. I do question thier future models. RWD is nice, but I don't see your average Intrepid or Impala buyer jumping up to a $35K Magnum wagon. Same with the 300C....how many 300M buyers you think will be in line for one. Do they have plans to make the Status bigger? Because it certainly can't be seen as a replacement for the Impala.

 

Jeep's not going anywhere - they're a valuable asset due to their unique product and rich history. Everything else about Chrysler's line-up could be easily replaced by competing products, though. If they got gobbled-up by someone, the overlap issues would be extremely difficult to deal with.

 

It would be a sad day in american history the day chrysler goes under.

Does anybody think that honda or toyota would buy them out?
I don't think that we would see a independent chrysler if the merger ended.

 

Well it sickens me to see this as well. Being a GM fan through the years I am also a American Car fan and Chrysler is a big part of that. What I wanted, and a few here have shared my thoughts, is a very healthy big 3 again. I wanted all three to be strong and take on the imports full force ahead. Now it seems like when one is up the expence of that success comes from the others. GM's rebates and incentives and market share seems to be gaining at the expence of Chrysler and Ford. The imports keep eating away and gaining ground while the big 2.5 pound each other out of business. Sad to see!

I hope the Germans can see their error and let Chrysler go back to the people who will take cae of it. I've heard stories from people in DCX that the Germans took most of Chrysler's cash and then cut funding for many future programs. THis almost seems to me like Daimler was planning this plunder of Chrysler since the deal was signed.

I'm supprised no wealthy shareholders for Chrysler never dug into the "merger of equals" deal to see if the public was misled and the deal is not actually legal. I know Kerkorian got some cash for this but I'm suprised that they never pushed to break the deal and take Chrysler with legal force. With all the corporate scandals in the past few years I could see several judges willing to look at this a little differently than they would have just 4-5 years back.

 

Chrysler's strength has never been in volume. Chrysler is historically a magician at making fantastic margins on the cars they sell, and keeping sales pumped up by continuously new products or at least reskinnings and showroom traffic builders. If Chrysler had to rely on volume, they would have never made it out of the 80s.

Keep in mind, the year Chrysler had it's largest cash reserves in history & it's largest yearly profits, they had only 11% of the car market (15% including trucks). They also had a 29 day strike where they lost over $300 million, more new products than ever in their history, so that pretty much shows how much of a cash cow they were, despite being a pretty low volume producer and having a 1-2 punch on their bottom line!

The AMC analogy isn't quite fitting. AMC had been dying for over a decade due to their own mismanagement. Save the Matador coupe Pacer, AMC produced no new products since 1971, & was all but bought by Renault (Renault owned 25% in '78, 49% in '83) because they were hemmoraging money, and desparately needed cash. Completely opposite the conditions of Chrysler's "merger".

AMC was finally bought from Renault by Chrysler in 1987 who assumed AMC's hopeless for their size $750 million debt. The only product AMC had on the drawing boards was the Grand Cherokee. Everything else was nothing more than US produced Renaults. Renault actually kept AMC alive and gave it something new to sell. Daimler pretty much took a very profitible Chrysler & sucked them dry, while giving nothing back.

The way the merger was sold to us was taking 2 powerful companies that would complement each other. Mercedes would bring it's history of solid engineering to improve quality, while Chrysler would bring design and it's famously fast new car development times to modernize Mercedes design & development speed. If I dig through storage, I can probally still find the papers sent to stockholders.

Would have been a great idea if DC had stuck to it, but the whole thing was a fraud.

 

Time for the shareholders to make some waves.

 

The time for that has come and gone. How long after the "merger" did it take for folks to figure out that "equal" must translate into something completely different in German?

Kerkorian already gave things his best shot, and basically got nothing more than a token amount of money.

As far as the idea of gaining control of DCX - I'd love to see that happen, but I'm not so sure that it could happen under German law. They've got some super-weird (and rather socialistic) laws over there governing these sort of things. Plus, DCX may have some sort of "poison pill" that would automatically trigger spin-offs if any shareholder gets more than XX% of the available shares, similar to what VW employs.

 

When did that happen? All I can find is this article from Aug 23rd that says shareholders won a $300million class action suit, and that Kerkorian's suit goes to trial this December 1st.

http://www.freep.com/money/autonews/dcx23_20030823.htm

 

I get a sinking feeling, because i know somewhere, the higher-ups at toyota are thinking, 1 down, 2 to go...

I think GM is the only thing that stands in the way of Toyota's world domination...but they REALLY need to bring their a-game to stay on top..no more slip-ups and backwards thinking

 

1) I don't think recent Chyslers cars have been on a par with recent GM cars in terms of build quality. But I base this on the limited number of late model Chysler and Dodge cars I've ridden in (co-workers) and test drives, rentals etc., so I'm no expert. Just my own perception here. Maybe new product lines will do better here... esp. the Hemi wagon thing, though it's gonna outa reach of average Joe.

2) They really need to loose all traces of the Celine Dione and other touchy feely marketing crap. Right there, they are alienating a lot of male customers.

3) Styling of chysler stuff [apart from the Viper] is either bland or very feminine looking.

4) Only now do they have any kind of affordable performance product to generate some buzz for the brands.. They coulda used the Turbo Neon in their line-up a long way back. And only recently did they get with the program and give the otherwise tedious PT-Cruiser a half decent turbo motor (the hi-output version). Too little too late...

 

Here's something else to chew on.

During labor negotiations a few weeks ago, the UAW learned that GM was kicking around filing bankruptcy. Not because they are out of money, but becuse this option would allow them to NOT pay their pension obligations. They decided not to use that tactic.

However, when Chrysler heard about this ploy, they seriously considered it.
On top of that, Hyundai is making overtures to D-C that it would like to purchase Chrysler Corp. Their intentions would be to ditch all the cars in the lineup, and keep the Dodge trucks for themselves, as they have no trucks in their portfolio. Their plan also included taking ownership of Jeep. Jeep would still be a separate brand, but just owned by Hyundai.
This plan obviously hasn't happened. Yet.

If Chrysler's downward spiral continues, expect the major shareholder of D-C (Deutche Bank) to demand that D-C get rid of Chrysler Corp.


As far as sales are concerned, I think it's a perception thing. Buyers perceive Chrysler vehicles as being sub par. Therefore, their sales go down. The media doesn't help either. When a car company posts any kind of gain, they get a small little blurb in the back of the buisness section of the newspaper. When it posts any kind of loss, it's headline news.
So people keep seeing that Chrysler is losing market share, not posting profits, etc. They think, " jeez, if nobody else is buying Chryslers, there must be a reason. I don't think I'm going to buy one either".

 

Yeah,..... that and Schrempp stripping them of all their money, products, vision, leadership and chain of command.