All Entries Tagged With: "CHRYSLER"
Maserati is Playing With Fire
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Maserati | Autoblog ::: Maserati “baby Quattroporte”
OR maybe Maserati’s being unwillingly pushed closer to the fire pit by callous Fiat bosses looking out for the bottom line. Either way, the latest news from Maserati regarding product coming down Modena’s pike isn’t encouraging.
There’s been talk of a”baby Quattroporte” and “baby GranTurismo” that in the next two to four years will play happy encore roles to the 1980s Biturbo generation and act as a brand extension bridge between Alfa Romeo’s top end and Maserati’s sub-€100K bottom.
All that would be fine except Fiat is going to have the baby Masers use the same platform as the 2012 Chrysler 300C (below).
History’s iPod has an insipid repeat mode for the worst tracks. Anyone remember the Chrysler TC by Maserati? Bad as that badge engineered bastardization was, this time, there’s a new twist.
In a hey-they’re-doing-it-too pass straight from the Jaguar playbook, Maserati will offer a twin-turbo, 400 horsepower V6 diesel engine co-developed with ChryCo. The catche of premium performance and the economy of diesel mix about as well as e85 and brake fluid. And so much for trickle-down Ferrari magic.
Somebody’s going to get burnt by a smoldering trident.
Weekend @ The Movies: Cars & Surrealism
Drifting toward the edge of reality
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Paramount
I had to pinch myself.
The funny thing about being part of the mass of literary humanity that “covers” what we handily call the “auto industry” is that you tend never to look at the subject of innocent observation quite the same after having “covered” it.
Take, for example, the Corvette Sting Ray.
In the film Star Trek, which yours traveled in thick of Saturday night’s fog to Providence (Rhode Island’s aptly named capital) to watch it on IMAX, there is an action scene where the young James Kirk steals the step dad’s Sting Ray and drives it into the Grand Canyon.
Funny thing is, all I could think of when I watched this flash production lay waste to a slickly beautiful piece of 60s sheetmetal was that not quite a year ago I talked with the man who designed it – Bob Veryzer.
Regrettably, the constraints of time meant that only a smidgen of our conversation made the cut into a recently aired Automobiles De Luxe segment on CPTV. But before long, you’ll see Mr. Veryzer – in all his retired understatement – at an event we attended and reflect on his car – a boldly captivating icon – and maybe marvel at the discontinuity of it all, as I have.
I also saw Angels & Demons which was a conspiracy theorist’s affirmation in the power of recognizing surreal patterns that uncover an awesome (or horrible) truth. You know, stuff journalists live for.
Having had my share of moments that defy coincidence – like watching Errol Morris’ The Fog of War in China and then a month later brushing past former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara (the film’s focus) on a street in Washington- I pondered another cognitive dissonance when watching the various police cars featured in the latest Dan Brown thriller.
It must be surreal to executives on both sides of the Atlantic.
Fiat – whose Lancias and Alfa Romeos feature prominently in the Robert Langdon’s clue chase across the Eternal City – once partnered with GM, then “divorced” the General winning a $1 Billion in the “settlement”, which in turn allowed the 500 to be re-born which in turn empowered Fiat to be, perhaps, the “savior” to some parts of the beleaguered US auto industry which may include some of GM’s European divisions.
The weak link became the strong force and now decides the fate of the former power which has now become a weak link.
It all brings home that this world is by far stranger and more interconnected than we let ourselves realize. Which is why I’m still pinching myself.
ChryCo Power: March Sale Madness
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG TIME
NEW YORK magazine that cosmo swilling socialite of gossip rags, reported recently in a brilliant new series called The Downturnaround (highlighting how things aren’t actually that bad when you really look at it) that the same Chrysler that has 30 days to partner up with Fiat or die moved 101,001 cars and trucks in March.
“If a company like Chrysler still moved 100,000 cars in a single month during the Worst Recession Since the Great Depression™, well…
Vintage Iacocca Ad: Be The Best
Chrysler boss Iacocca gave it to us straight, see.
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG YouTube – See video below
THIS video is a trip and it’s almost scary to see the parallels.
In this 1:30 US commercial from 1984, Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca pulls us and himself up by the bootstraps implementing a particularly old school kinda bravado or cantakery – “when you been kicked in the head like we have…”
Mr. Iacocca uses his moment on camera to link America’s future with Chrysler while pitching the public a new kind of Chrysler from a company “that had one foot in the grave” - while gesturing to all those old K-cars and Caravans that are today rusting in your local landfill.
In a roaming, scene-to-scene dialogue that I’m almost sure Dan Aykroyd channeled to play Ray Zalinski in Tommy Boy, we see Mr. Iacocca walk through an assembly line, punch up a high-tech image of a Chrysler diagram for a car that will “beat the Japanese at their game” and promise to be better than the best – “B.M.Dubya, Audi, even Mercedes”.
Oh, if he only knew then…
“Hard work. Commitment. The stuff that America was made of. Without them, there is no future.”
Before Chrysler Fails, Save Jeep
What happens next ain’t pretty…
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Watchmen – Copyright Warner Brothers
WATCHED Watchmen, this weekend. See it if you haven’t, it’s a fun movie in a similar sense that Sin City was a fun movie, only 70% as metaphorically dark but every bit as graphic.
In the course of a plot that rambles on in an alternate reality of 1985, Chrysler Chairman Lee “Safety Doesn’t Sell” Iacocca gets a bullet between the eyes.
In this reality, you can help but feel that the company the old captain of industry helped to save in the late-70s is about to get one from Uncle Sam.
If the President (a former owner of a Chrysler 300) should decide that Chrysler is no longer viable and then Chryco fails… if it happens, may it come finally, as they say.
While Chrysler does employ thousands and indeed pay thousands more their fat legacies, it’s difficult to grasp why the government should keep a company that lost its edge long ago alive (barely) for the capital benefit of a corporate shark like Cerberus.
The talented men and women who labor at Chrysler must adapt and find alternative employment elsewhere as so many others have. It’s the rough part of change, like victims of a hurricane, they’ve been swept up in a devastating flood that they couldn’t control.
True, Chrysler has 30 days to tie the knot with Fiat in order to secure still more government loans. But few see fast and positive results from such a merger. It truly does look like Chryco’s done in the 30 days or three months.
Sad, sad, sad to say.
Suspecting this, Chrysler management and the presidential authority that oversees Chrysle and GM restructuring efforts should look to sell off Jeep which is the company’s only viable brand. It’ll raise capital for Chrysler and hopefully Jeep will see a profitable future as a smaller niche brand that’s smartly managed by something other than a venture-capital group.
Jeep, the car “helped win the war” for the Greatest Generation (and us), is still a hot label and one of the only American cars to actually find a receptive audience in overseas markets – skeptical Europeans, in particular.
In recent travels from Connecticut to Florida yours spied plenty of new Wrangler Unlimiteds and indeed a friend just took delivery of one in black on slate – not that those personal observations translate to hard empirical data, but it does contradict what many in “the media” would have us believe, the whole United States isn’t interested in buying from hatchbacks from Toyota and Honda and in fact there are plenty of Jeeps that are moving off the lots and into people’s driveways.
A viable, competitive brand that fills a demand should not be left to die along with a corporate parent who lost its way years ago.
Save Jeep.
Obama Plans For Recovery Panel, Not Car Czar
By Gunnar Heinrich
PRESIDENTObama is said to be set to announce a task panel rather than a simple “car czar” to oversee the restructuring efforts of General Motors and Chrysler, the AP reported today. And the same people who brought you last week’s market crash, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner along with Lawrence girls-can’t-do-math Summers will oversee said task panel. So, for now we’ve got two car czars, really.
The Paradox of Thrift
Two members of the press at work…
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG The Flagellants by Pieter van Laer
THERE’S a lot of loathing of self and others happening in the media at present.
I’ll explain how this pertains to cars in a sec…
Much of their vitriol has to do with money; the lack of it for some; the depraved squandering of it for others. For most magazines and newspapers and their salaried staff, it’s definitely the former.
Average advertising revenues fell faster in 2008 than Chrysler’s December numbers which means that executives at every business that makes dough by printing hardcopy – from the New York Times to Vogue to Car & Driver - are casting people off left and right. And like any good ship captains, these corporate heads make sure that they’re the absolute last to leave a sinking ship.
So understanding that the fourth estate is lacking a foreseeable future, what entitles you or anyone else to have one, either?
Keep It Comin’ Love: Motown’s Pay Day
Plug in the earphones, click play, wait a beat, then read. Or you might be left out…
By Gunnar Heinrich
WOW! This party’s really loud! Whew! Is that Southern Comfort?
Anyway…Anyway… listen…no,no,no I hate that $#!&…anyway… listen up!
Did you hear?! Detroit got its pay out! Thirteen Point Four Billion! Yeah, everyone’s talking about it! The President just signed off…
So, someone needs to tell the D.J. to stay, cuz this party’s gonna keep on rollin’! Through the New Year at least…
And you know what!? If we go a li’l crazy – Oh, yeah! That’s right! Ha Ha – and the tank runs a li’l dry, there’ll be Four Billion more where that came from! YEAAAH! Show me some love!!
Ha Ha, You know what we need?
WE need to buy a BOATLOAD of blow and invite the rest of Detroit! And we gotta send some to those guys @ the Freep.
They could really use the lift!
Because you know why?
No, no, put it down – I told you I hate that $#!&.
Because, because, one good stimulant deserves another. And President Bush really wants his free trade deal with Colombia.
Angst On The Sidelines Of MoTown’s Automotive Crisis: The Future Role Of The Ambassador Bridge
By Gunnar Heinrich
WHO knew that one fourth of all trade between the United States and Canada passes over one solitary bridge?
In an article that highlights, among other things, the manner in which two commercially entwined countries, a bankrupt state, a hopeful province, two destitute cities, a Machiavellian billionaire, and a hardened newspaper all seek a way forward in a future clouded by current doubts, “Matty Moroun’s Bridge Battle” by Detroit News‘ Charlie LeDuff is a compelling read.
Mr. LeDuff’s reporting picks up on a story earlier published by the New York Times of how one private citizen and enterprising businessman Manuel “Matty” Moroun owns (the company that owns) the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit, MI, USA to Windsor, ON, Canada.
The bridge, it seems, is a bottleneck of interests; the first set being Mr. Moroun’s own.
More Fingers Needed For Logic’s Dike: Kristof On The Detroit Bailout
What needs doing seems clear enough.
By Gunnar Heinrich
COLUMNIST for The New York Times Nicholas D. Kristof seems like a pretty smart guy.
That Mr. Kristof writes a regular opinion piece in America’s newspaper of record stands as reasonably solid evidence to base the assumption. NYT folk are notoriously picky in their hiring practices, though, when I read the work of some of Mr. Kristof’s opinionated colleagues, I sometimes think that they’re not picky enough.
Add the fact that Mr. Kristof is a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard alum and I think we get the idea that the man’s up to snuff on reading, writing, and arithmetic.
With that info, I ask you to read and consider Mr. Kristof’s well intentioned piece in support of the ongoing Dollar$ For Detroit campaign.
In the article, A Finger In The Dike, the columnist goes to some lengths in answering a few of the talking points that the pundit world’s doubting Thomases have cast on bailing out America’s automakers.
An excerpt:
” [Pundit:] The solution isn’t a bailout, it’s bankruptcy. If the car companies enter Chapter 11, they’ll be able to rework burdensome contracts and actually make themselves competitive again. That’s how the airlines recovered, and auto companies shouldn’t be favored.’
[Kristof:] Bankruptcy would be a gamble because we just don’t know whether cars from bankrupt companies will still sell. I’ll buy a $400 air ticket to fly on a bankrupt airline, because it’ll still be honored in a month’s time, but that doesn’t mean I’ll spend $30,000 on a car from a bankrupt company when I’m counting on its resale value in 10 years’ time.”
I highlight this point because as much as I support Mr. Kristof’s sentiment, in this specific instance his logic falls flat.
