On this weeks episode of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher he mentions the $25 Billion bailout of the Big 3 & then says that Chrysler's considering getting out of the car making business altogether! I'm wondering where he heard this & is the source reliable?

 

This may be Chrysler's future - http://www.autoblog.com/2008/10/04/f...p-up-in-paris/

 

Chrysler is the ***** of the automotive world. IT just gets passed around to everyone.

 

The bailout bill will cause massive inflation in the US dollar. Not many middle class Americans are going to be able to afford a new car in the next two years. Who is going to want to 100% finance a new $40,000 SUV when gas is $8 a gallon and interest rates are 50%.

 

it will be interesting. Jack Welch moved GE away from appliances which GE was known for at the time because he felt it wasnt worth competing with Japanese comptitors appliances which people were buying more of. Alot of people in the company were pissed at him because emotionally thats how they saw the company. Bob Nardelli was one of three in line for Jack Welch's Job and certainly would have had to hold that ideoligy for Welch to consider him. I wonder if Nardelli still feels that way now that he doesnt have to, and did he take this idea to Chrysler? If so then it wouldnt surprise me if Bob Nardelli felt he needed to move Chrysler into another business to survive then he would. I wouldnt blame him.

Personally the only thing Id miss is Wrangler, Viper and the Challenger. The Dukes of Hazzard Charger was awesome looking, but its hard for me to come up with many cool cars in comparison to GM and Ford. I feel more bad for people who were more into the brand if this is true...

 

wow..that would suck..but hey we got a new "AMERICAN" car company..Toyota..

leveling our economy one idiot at a time..


but on a side not I said a while back and posted about it..the Camaro would fail not for what it is but the way the economy is..and looks like it..

 

Heh, not like I didn't see this coming

 

But this will not be missed. Besides Jeep, Chrysler has kind of been "gone" for years.

 

I'm not sure how one mentions Renault without also acknowledging that company's relationship with Nissan - which just happens to have several ties back to Chrysler in the form of manufacturing agreements. Does this start to paint a picture for anyone?

There's a big f'in' difference between GE moving away from appliances - the company has about a bazillion other business units - and Chrysler moving out of the car business. What else would Chrysler do? They've got nothing else - literally, nothing. This isn't like GM in the late 90s, where business units like Hughes and EDS were potentially more lucrative than the automotive market (don't forget the dot-com era rumors that had GM casting off the car business and moving forward as a tech company). There's absolutely no diversification in the company, and hasn't been for several decades.

Chrysler won't exit the auto business voluntarily, or as a functioning company. Its only way out is a buy-out, or liquidation in bankruptcy court.

FWIW, Nardelli looks simply uncomfortable in the car business. I don't know if he thinks that the business is somehow beneath him, or if he just doesn't understand it, but the guy just doesn't seem to have his head wired for running an automotive company. This ain't a business for Six Sigma drones.

 

Lots of good points all around.

Nardelli was lousy enough to be paid off (big) to leave Home Depot, and is again clearly out of his element in the auto business. Instead of an aggressive plan to develop new products or even a circle the wagons back to basics, what I'm seeing at Chrysler is a focus on simply sitting on the cash & getting others to make a couple of vehicles for them on the cheap.

Chrysler getting together with Renault IMO isn't a great idea. I'm old enough to remember when AMC got into bed with Renault. Same conditions. Renault supplied the cars and virturally turned AMC into a Renault network that also sold Jeeps and AWD Eagles. Ironically, it was Chrysler that bought out AMC from Renault.AMC essentially forfeited all new model development (save jeep) to another company. Chrysler is seeming to do the same thing.

Lee Iacocca puts the blame for the way Chrysler turned out squarely on the doorstep of Robert Eaton, and looks at it as the worse decision of his entire career. He's made a pretty convincing case in talks and in his last book.

The short of it is that when Chrysler had more cash in the bank than anyone else, was the world's lowest cost automaker, had the highest profit per vehicle, and a solid and full pipeline of new vehicles, Bob Eaton essentially sold out Chrysler to the then far much smaller DaimlerBenz for essentially no reason, in a deal that gave DB essential control of Chrysler. DB then proceeded to plunder Chrysler's cash to give Daimler employees bonuses, fund Mercedes Benz's redesigns and the development of Smart, while Chrysler employees got plant closings, pink slips, and a decimated engineering staff.

Since then, Super83z crude as he may have put it, is pretty true.

If Bob Eaton hadn't sold out his company, with Chrysler's history of coming out with their best stuff and amazing turnarounds when things were bad, Chrysler would IMHO be a different story today.

 

Jack Welch believed that if you weren't #1 at something, you shouldnt be doing it. GE wasnt #1 at appliances, and could not get that title back. GE had other arms to fall back on, and some other businesses aren't so lucky.

Another example is Paccar. Paccar, despite popular opinion, does not make trucks. Paccar makes money. Recently that money has been made through trucks. It has done it via steel, logging, and rail cars in the past.

I would put money behind that. But speaking of "one-man marvels" (for better or worse) I wonder how history will look back at Bob Lutz. I already wonder if he hadnt been where he was when all this started if GM would even be alive today. Not that Lutz gets all the credit, but if cadillac was still in the trash heap for sales selling the same stuff they sold in the 90s...

I agree. Leave them to keep the machines turning behind the scenes.

I also think anyone who wants to get that high up in automotive business needs to have atleast a few marbles missing. That might be good or it might be bad - but it certainly takes a unique breed.

"You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villan" I think is a quote worthy to be applied to *any* major automotive executive...

 

I think that if Chrysler does fold it's tent the decision will have been made by Cerberus & not Chrysler itself. In that event, they'll dismember the company & sell off the individual pieces to the highest bidders. Classic "Corporate Raider" tactic. And thus would end forever the company that Walter P. Chrysler (& to a lesser extent, the Dodge bros.) built.

 

Cadillac was already on course for a major turnaround when Lutz came aboard. Actually, the only change Lutz made at Cadillac prior to the current new CTS & STS refreshining was apparently subbing the LS6 instead of a blown 6 on the original CTSv.

GM also was howing some signs of life in other areas. The Belair concept design of 2002 was still evolving which meant it was developing towards production and Holden was developing the VE with intent to sell in the US, even if they had to find a way to do it themselves.

Bob Lutz's biggest contribution to GM I feel is organizational. He took out steps to the development process that was redundant, he eliminated the focus groups and compromises that produced the Aztek (which by all accounts was actually good looking in it's original design). He served as blocker against penny counters on interior materials, and integrated GM's global development processes. Of everything, I'd say the only cars that actually owe their existence to him are the Solstice/Sky and arguably the new Camaro.

Today GM spends more time real world testing cars and lining up suppliers than they need designing and engineering it. GM can rebody an existing car in little over a 12 months (ie: the current STS) and almost all of that is to get the machinary to make the parts.

No doubt GM would be in far worse shape than it is now without Lutz (assuming GM would even be around). But Lutz's contribution isn't so much the cars themselves. The DOA RWD Impala, Buick Roadmaster, GTO, and lately the Orlando shows that the old GM is still alive and very well. Lutz's contribution is that he made the vehicles GM actually did make far and away better than it would have been without him.

 

GM was also thought to get out of the Auto industry and into housing loans with GMAC.

I think there are alot of Welch ideoligies that can go a long way in the car industry. Boundryless or the idea that an idea can come from anywhere I think is being used by GM now even extending that to getting feedback directly from us by Scott being on these boards and Lutz responding to people and critisism on fastlane. Theyve gotten feedback, but once in a while I think theyve also pulled ideas, or even ways something was put.

Jack also pushed toward finding new business to move towards for GE. Opening new buisness in other areas and keep your eyes open for oppertunity. Nardelli I dont think is going to have the emotional attachment to different vehicles. I dont get the same impression that he thinks its beneath him but I dont think the emotional part is there. That could be a good thing, in maybe he will push Chrysler toward alternative fuels or battery faster than someone who would have a emotional draw toward petrolium vehicles and Icons like the Viper that wouldnt be the same without the V10 gas guzzler

True but he might be able to expand Chrysler outside of the Auto industry.




Lutz to me has been amazing. Solstice, Camaro, Volt, being candid about improvements, taking on unfiltered feedback honestly good and bad without sounding like a comercial. That is no easy thing to do. The best thing hes done was globalize which was long over due and work toward bringing Zeta RWD here, bring the astra, and the Sostice, Sky and Opel variants. I put him up there with Shelby in terms of Icons in my eyes. In fact I would like to know if he had a hand in the Viper while at chrysler and if Shelby and Lutz worked together and if so what they did.

Well I agree to the extent that I think Automotive business is almost an art. Sometimes you have to do things just because of your reputation like the Volt to rid misconceptions of the EV1 or the cool factor like the ZR1 or Camaro. You could build a slab sided boring box for cheaper and more cost effective but noone would want it.