Posted on 05/29/2007 9:23:26 AM PDT by papasmurf
By John McElroy WardsAuto.com, May 23, 2007 12:43 PM
While everyone else is focused on Daimler selling Chrysler, I’m trying to figure out who Cerberus is going to flip it to. You know this crowd did not buy Chrysler to hold it. That’s not what they do. {snip}
Getting Chrysler’s labor costs to match Toyota’s in North America...
Putting those savings into the product...
Quickly pruning the U.S. dealer base...
Expanding aggressively overseas.
{snip}
So the real question is, who gets it? It sure would make a tantalizing acquisition for someone such as Fiat, PSA, or (gulp!) one of those Chinese or Indian upstarts.
:O)
P
AM General is apparently interested in getting Jeep back, per some rumors.
Also, the Chinese didn’t want it; the Indians weren’t interested. Fiat isn’t really solvent, and PSA is broken.
Why on earth would anyone want to buy this foundering ship with its UAW anchor still firmly attached?
AM General is apparently interested in getting Jeep back, per some rumors.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Now I’m lost, when did AM General own Jeep?
AM General was the military contract division of AMC. AMC was the parent company of Jeep.
In 1983 AM General was spun off and sold to LTV Aerospace so AMC could get some much needed cash. Chrysler bought the remaining AMC property a few years later. And, as we all know, AMC ceased to exist at that point and was absorbed into Chrysler.
AM General is the last extant vestige of the once-great AMC empire. The Hummer is technically a Jeep (because it started off life as a AM/Jeep product) and it still has the Jeep seven slot grille.
Apparently AM General wants Jeep at this point.
Have they already run through the cash GM gave them to buy their way out of the merger?
What about the Koreans?
Ferrari wants it!
Who'd want it?
Hyunday said no, and Daewoo is owned by GM. Don’t think the Koreans are interested at all.
Fiat is making money again, but the problem is that they still owe billions of euros/dollars.
Er, Hyundai.
Why should I care?
Chrysler has been teetering on the brink of total failure since I was a young guy. Iaccoa and Gerry ford. bailouts and guarentees to prop up a major auto company that has consistantly produced gar-Barge since just after WWII.
Free enterprise means let the market decide.
He’s got several things wrong... “pruning the dealer base”??? What the hell? Of course not. EXPANDING might be more like it.
And as far as engineering, Chrysler was the major drivetrain engineer for DCX, not the other way around. Daimler LOST it’s engineering muscle when it split off Chrysler.
Yes, Daimler USED Chrysler for everything it could use it for, from buying overpriced parts, to using personell and engineering charged to Chrysler to support Daimler.
Don’t look now, but Daimler’s the one that shafted themselves... Chrysler’s raring to go. All that pent-up aggravation and revenge is in every fiber of the Chrysler bunch over here, to get back at show up Daimler.
if ANYONE can pull off a huge turnaround, it’ll be the people at Chrysler. Expect less than a year to start seeing a wake forming as that ship jumps into “warp” mode.
I can take it for a week, I guess. Maybe end of July?
I certainly HOPE your right!
LOL. This child of the Sixties can only guess the empire you speak of was in something other than automobiles (e.g. those military vehicles) or was gone before my time. I only remember AMC for the Ramblers, Nashes, Studebakers, Packards (in name only), etc. I won't even mention those caricatures-on-wheels of the Seventies. :O)
I meant “once great” in the most ironic terms.
Er, especially since I just dumped the last product of the AMC empire, a 1986 Jeep Grand Wagoneer.
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