TTAC’s call for Chrysler to reveal what the hell it plans on doing with U.S. taxpayers’ $10 billion “investment” has been answered. According to Automotive News [sub], a plan for Chrysler’s product line-up is “emerging” ahead of the official reveal in . . . November. That said, calling so-called plan “vague” would like be calling Hillary Clinton’s tome “It Takes a Village” slightly left-leaning and insufficiently attributed. Anyway, here ya go: “A Chrysler brand with more luxury than Cadillac. A Dodge brand known for driving dynamics. A Jeep lineup that is — well, Jeep. And vehicles to cover every market segment so that wildly fluctuating fuel prices won’t destroy sales.” Sounds crazy and it’ll never work.
[Chrysler CEO Gary] Fong envisions the Chrysler brand as “a notch above Lincoln, a notch above Cadillac.” This suggests a substantial change, because Chrysler vehicles generally sell for many thousands of dollars less than Cadillacs.
Note: I’ve sat in knock-off Barcoloungers with more luxury than the majority of Cadillac’s lineup. Lincoln? Chrysler could set the bar lower, but then they’re already kicking Chery’s ass. Bottom line: the chances that Chrysler—CHRYSLER—can gain a toe-hold in the American luxury (near luxury?) market before their/your cash runs out are somewhere between Slim Shady and Marshall Mathers.
Dodge as a performance brand? Someone’s been huffing Viper exhaust fumes (you remember: the “brand” they couldn’t sell?). Well, not only performance.
[Dodge CEO and head of marketing for all the brands (don’t ask) Michael] Accavitti said the Dodge brand needs to evolve, transforming the muscle-car spirit from brute force to driving dynamics. Dodge will go “from a middle linebacker to Lance Armstrong,” he said. “We will remain a sporty brand, with a lot of emphasis on the performance area, but also on better fuel economy, benefiting from the great technologies Fiat is bringing to us,” Accavitti said.
“Jeep is Jeep” may solicit fond memories of Opus’ magnum (so to speak) Opus, but you’d kinda hoped Chrysler could do better than a four-wheeled Zen koan.
Never mind. Fiat will come to the rescue, with European style vehicles. Uh, no.
Michael Manley, CEO of the Jeep brand and head of product planning for all the brands, vowed that while Fiat technology and platforms will be part of the plan, “You won’t see Fiat DNA in our brands.”
Will the last ChryCo executive out of bankruptcy please turn out the lights? Oh wait, they’re doing just that.
Is that the new mid engine Viper pictured?
I have a better idea.
Come up with one platform and slap different grills on them.
Oh! Wait…..
The people at Chrysler have some history in creating new vehicle categories (e.g. the minivan, the mid-size pickup, the “retro-rod”). Part of that was they seemed to be pretty good at creating something and then convincing a segment of the population that that was just what they were looking for (invention is the mother of necessity). Unfortunately, execution was not always the strong suit. If the new powers that be can tap into some of that insight but pull it together a little better, they could have a chance. I am an eternal optimist.
Dodge will go “from a middle linebacker to Lance Armstrong”
That would be impressive, but impossible. Lance didn’t start out as a middle linebacker, and performed a lifetime of dedicated work to become what he is.
I don’t see Fiatsler throwing that switch overnight.
I’ve seen invisible rabbits with more substance than Chryler’s future car plans.
“Jeep is cheap”
Really?
Why am I not surprised by all the negativity from the author? What is it that YOU want them to do, the status quo?
At least these sets of executives have a vision of a better Chrysler.
Do you want them to build another Tundra (4 star crash rating, Open “flex” frame, weak rear gate, too heavy and the worse gas mileage of all full size truck) to compete with better products in the marketplace?
What is your vision, a fancier keyboard?
dmrdano +1
I think they need to revive the Fargo brand (steal it back from the Turks), just to confuse things even further.
@pgcooldad,
A vision of a better Chrysler is all good … but maybe a sprinkling of realism would have been nice to have, too.
dmrdano +1…well, to a point.
Chrysler did pretty much create the minivan category, and also the “retro-rod” categories. But the reason they had some success with the minivans and the PT Cruiser was that the vehicles are actually useful for a good many buyers. The competition – at least in the retro-rod category – forgot this small fact and we got the repop Thunderbird and the SSR or whatever that misbegotten roadster pickup from GM was called. GM did eventually figure out that they needed something with some room inside, but the HHR came on the market too late to be anything but second fiddle, with its audience probably being people who would only buy GM and not a Chrysler product.
Oh, yeah, there was the Plymouth Prowler too. I see more of those advertised in HMN than I ever have seen on the road. Maybe that’s what was meant by “retro-rod” rather than the PT Cruiser. Something only useful to drive to Cruise Night at the A&W.
Chrysler, you’re just NOT going to be able to burst into a room crowded with established, competent players, and expect to WOW the crowd.
Not in this market.
You don’t have the resources, assets, or time needed to out-Cadillac Cadillac. Or Lincoln. Or BMW. Etc.
You DO have Jeep. Work with that. EXCEL with that. Then work upwards.
Sigh – I’m always the guy who turns on the lights just when the party gets going good….
The people at Chrysler have some history in creating new vehicle categories (e.g. the minivan, the mid-size pickup, the “retro-rod”)
Unfortunately, those people are long gone… driven out by the German invasion. I hope that there’s still talent there…
…transforming the muscle-car spirit from brute force to driving dynamics. Dodge will go “from a middle linebacker to Lance Armstrong,
I think this is a bad idea. Dodge as a truck and muscle car brand doesn’t need to be fixed. It’s a powerful brand identity that works and has served them well. Changing the emphasis to refined handling over power is going to alienate the base without winning converts. I think that this ‘dainty dodge’ thing means that Fiat is intending to rebrand Fiats as Dodges, and save the Chrysler name for big RWD “Caddy competitors” i.e. updated 300’s.
I think that they’d do better to resurrect Plymouth for the Fiats, and keep Dodge for muscle and trucks.
Chrysler, in so many words said “I’ve got nothing.”
Pgcooldad, the points raised in this piece were perfectly fair.
Imagine if you handed several billion dollars to a candy company that was floundering, telling the candy company they had to come up with a better plan for their business. And then imagine the candy company came back to you months later saying only: “We are going to focus on making tasty candy!”
That’s pretty much what Chrysler has done, and it’s quite worrying, frankly.
On the Chrysler brand. My heart says Go For it! IIRC they already have most of the development work done on the Imperial, and a luxury brand could have a worse flagship (Cadillac? Lincoln? Acura? Anyone?) Long wheelbase, big Hemi V8? Build it right and make it look and feel luxurious, and maybe they can do this, especially if they do not bastardize the line with badge-engineered Dodges or Fiats.
My head, however, says that Chrysler has been shooting for the stars in the luxury class since the mid 20s, so far without success. Some of the early Imperials got there, as did the Imperials of the 50s and 60s. However, it seems that they did best a notch down, like when they sold the Imperial as a New Yorker in 1976-78. They sold a LOT of those (for Chrysler). But head-on competitors to Cadillac, Lincoln or Mercedes they were not.
Bring Mito over.
Did I miss the Farago and TTAC come to terms post? Hoping this continues.
The image is reflective of the state of the Chrysler organization. Good choice.
I think Farago’s still posting until his required number of articles is up.
Chrysler should have been left to die. Even back in 1980, but especially TODAY.
Wait to see all the horrors of the Fiat era. you the taxpayer will be paying for every billion in the red every year, you might as well watch the sorry spectacle.
How exciting, I’ll have to visit my local Crysler-Dodgy-Cheap dealer in a few years.
Also, It’s worth noting that despite what they may say, FIAT always has and always will stand for “Fit it again, Tony!”
(or, Fix It Again Today, or Fix It All (the) Time)
Just like MG really means “money gone” :D
Reading between the lines, the plan is to sell a lot of the lineup badged as Fiats, while the Chrysler and Dodge brands are going to be shrunk dramatically.
By creating niches for the US brands in this way, those brands will necessarily be kept small. And if they are cut entirely, then they won’t be missed.
Ultimately, the big picture plan appears to be to use the Chrysler acquisition as a way to sell more Fiats in North America, and perhaps to use some Mexican factories to build more of them. From Fiat’s perspective, this was about expanding Fiat, not about rebuilding Chrysler and Dodge.
The Chrysler brand died as a luxury brand the day Plymouth was killed. Maybe now that all the dealers are under one roof they can end the de-contented Chryslers, but it will take a long time before it gets back up to the (near) luxury level it was at 10 years ago.
Just another example, look at Cadillac. They’re finally back to luxury level and getting prestige now, but it took them decades to live down the Cimarron.
pgcooldad
You got it right man. It’s easy to sit behind a computer and criticize someone elses job. I didn’t hear any “better” solutions. At least they are going to try and at least thousands still have jobs. If it doesn’t work out, then even more than the thousands of workers at Chrysler will be in trouble.
It almost sounds like the article was written by Eeyore.
Chrysler CEO: “We’re going to have to offer a broad array of products across every one of the segments”
eh, why?
It’s not completely unreasonable to think that Chrysler can do what they’re planning to do, but in an extremely crowded and ever-shrinking market, they’re really behind the 8 ball. For Chrysler to survive make such a plan work and survive, they really needed to get started several years ago. As it is now, they’re going to be fighting the uphill battle of overcoming a checkered past, being bankrupt, and trying to sell a new Chrysler corp. to the not-so-receptive masses. While I would love to see an American Chrysler make it through this, I couldn’t care less about the Italian owned Chrysler, especially since the government has already told me not to expect to see my tax money returned.
The truly sad thing is that all of these people (Acavitti, Manly, and Fong) truly mean, and believe, that what they say is possible.
Whatever happened to personal credibility in this country?
Given endless money, and endless time, I doubt these people could succeed at reviving Chrysler.
They have neither. The patient is dead. Pull the plug. Save the taxpayer some money.
They are talking about their 5-7 year plan when the public wants to know their 2 year plan or less!
They need product asap not in 4-5 years!
@BDB: Just another example, look at Cadillac. They’re finally back to luxury level and getting prestige now, but it took them decades to live down the Cimarron.
And even the Cimarron was arguably closer to “luxury” than the Sebring or PT Cruiser.
I think people forget how small Chry. is in comparison to GM, Ford, Toyota, etc. (They were part of the Big 3 b/c they were the third US maker). This has worked in thier favor in the past, in terms of nimbleness and only having to have 5-6 really good cars/trucks to turn it around.
In terms of people hating Fiat, no one else wanted them and at that point they didn’t have the talent, technology or resources to do it on thier own, they have to have small platforms and engines (and no a 2L/4cyl. Hemi wouldn’t work).
I think they should have been allowed to fail as well as most of those sales would have gone to GM and Ford, but since GM was being financed by the Gov. politically it would have been impossible not to give Chry. a chance as well.
It does seem a little silly to aim Chrysler above Cadillac and Lincoln, either it’s just noise to help push future product (my guess) or Pch101 is right and the plan is to keep the American brands really small. Dodge on the other hand is already the sporty alternative to Chrysler, and I don’t think it matters at all that they want to go “Lance Armstrong” so long as that’s what their (also CAFE limited) competition is doing as well. Seems more like stating the obvious than articulating a new product plan in that case.
Unlike other US automakers, Chryler is already selling large RWD sedans (at a slight price premium) to hundreds of thousands of American customers. That has to count towards something, maybe not uber-Cadillac, but American VW. Slightly upmarket from the average mainstream offerings (in engineering content and price), but not the full Audi. This would still require a drastic culling of the current lineup and some serious work put in on interiors, and, as Pch101 said, a smaller Chrysler.
Overall I don’t see much to get outraged about here until they announce exactly what Fiat’s brand role will be.
“Just another example, look at Cadillac. They’re finally back to luxury level and getting prestige now …. ”
I beg to differ. Cadillac is still a marginal brand. They had a few good years of selling tarted up Tahoes as Escalades to rap star wannabees, but that is long over. Cadillac’s dealer network is a hodge podge. Lexus, Mercedes, BMW and Infiniti loose exactly zero sleep wonder what Cadillac is going to do to compete with them.
Cadillac’s car sales are in the tank and nobody outside of GM and the GM fanboy choir takes Cadillac seriously as a luxury car maker.
Whatever sales the CTS does today still are not enough to replace the popularity of the Seville and Deville in the 1990s. The CTS was supposed to be Cadillac’s entry level offering, but it has really come to be the only vehicle Cadillac sells in even modest volumes. Also, ditching Cadillac’s great nameplates was idiotic. CTS, DTS, DDT … who cares!
Ditching Cadillac’s great nameplates was idiotic. CTS, DTS, DDT … who cares!
And if they kept the names, I’d have a feeling we’d be hearing “HAHA A DEVILLE IS GRANDMA’S CAR!” from the same people complaining about the alphanumerics. Blame Lexus and BMW for bringing us that trend.
“Ditching Cadillac’s great nameplates was idiotic. CTS, DTS, DDT … who cares!”
Absolutely agree.
“BDB :
September 21st, 2009 at 12:45 pm
And if they kept the names, I’d have a feeling we’d be hearing “HAHA A DEVILLE IS GRANDMA’S CAR!” from the same people complaining about the alphanumerics
These are TWO DIFFERENT ISSUES. Do you really believe that Caddilac’s obvious shortcomings vs many luxury imports would be corrected if you changed the names of these sorry products? Laughable. Consumers are NOT that dumb, esp. those with enough $ to buy a luxury car.
” Blame Lexus and BMW for bringing us that trend.”
Oh really? Mercedes brought this trend many decades before Lexus was born. BUT in the case of both Mercedes and BMW, the letters and numbers are NOT meaningless, but have PRECISE MEANINGS!!!
Such as, E 300 meant it is a mid-range E class mErc and has a 3.0 lt engine! Or
750iL meant it is a top of the line 7 series BMW and has the 5.0 lt V12 (back int he 80s-early 90s)
NOT some silly gibberish alphanumeric like Acura or Caddilac or esp. LINCOLN, in their cluelessness, are now using.
Here is the undeniable proof of the utter failure of the domestic LUXURY makers:
In the 60s and 70s they controlled 90% of the US luxury car market.
Now the IMPORTS control 83% of that market!!!!
This is a huge defeat for the domestics, a much bigger defeat (%-wise) than the one they suffered in the mid-priced segments by Accord, Camry, Corolla and Civic!
These are TWO DIFFERENT ISSUES. Do you really believe that Caddilac’s obvious shortcomings vs many luxury imports would be corrected if you changed the names of these sorry products?
No, but if they released really good versions of Sevilles and DeVilles and El Dorado’s, you would be talking about how they’re the name of something grandma drives. Remember how Ford gets panned around here by some for using the name “Taurus” on a full-size flagship sedan?
Lincoln’s names aren’t that confsuing. MKZ=Mark Zephyr, MKS=Mark Sedan, MKX=Mark Crossover, MKT=Mark Touring. It isn’t anymore confusing than ES, LS, GS, and IS.
In the 60s and 70s they controlled 90% of the US luxury car market.
They were the only game in town, pretty much. There weren’t any BMW dealers in small town America in 1975, and Lexus didn’t even exist yet.
They’ve only gotten their stuff together very recently (well Lincoln and Cadillac anyway). Now they just need some good marketing. I’d take an MKZ with standard leather heated/cooled seats over an ES with freaking *standard cloth* seats for more money!
To Fincar1,
True, absolutely true. Actually in the Ioccoa era there was an emphasis on functionality with style. It was hard to say if form truly followed function because both were blended pretty well. This same philosophy held true throughout the product lines in all price ranges (although trucks were pretty much ignored for a lot of the recovery period).
A lot of their products were hardly world class (e.g. Omni, K-Car), but they met the functional needs of a lot of consumers at a price they could afford. The did it with a style that fit in the era (a lot of straight lines, squared off overall), and they were fun to drive (my wife still is sore I sold her Turismo). My boss’ Chrysler New Yorker was (to me) ugly, but I have to admit it rode out great (I wanted to kill the voice in the dashboard). If Chrysler builds cars that are a good value, even if it takes a while to come up to “world class,” they may be able to make it.
My personal favorite car overall was (cue the chuckles) my ’89 Colt Vista (Mitsu product sold as a Dodge) which was perfect from a utility standpoint, handled great and (IMHO) was nice looking, especially in the AWD/manual configuration. If they could have ironed out a few tech issues, I would still be driving it today. Utility, however, only sells to a certain segment of the poopulation. Some excitement has to come with it. If they use imports to help bridge the time to recover, it would be OK with me. But they need to be good cars or forget about it.
***They were the only game in town, pretty much. There weren’t any BMW dealers in small town America in 1975, and Lexus didn’t even exist yet.***
I think that that was AutoSavant’s point….
with three “competitive” domestic lux. marques, you’d think that at least one would’ve been able to adapt to the changing marketplace and survive.
Made in Japan = Made in “boondocks third-world” for a long, long time.
The problem any new car manufacturer has to overcome is to give the customer some reason to buy a new car over a good used one. This requires new styling, a new must have feature, or new technology not available a few years ago. Dodge offering a smoother riding coil spring rear suspension in the Ram or the Challenger styling are examples. Not sure how Fiat does anything to improve Dodge or Jeep other than give them potential small care sales for CAFE. I believe that Chrysler is DEAD as a luxury brand. Easier and cheaper to start from scratch with a new brand. Overall, the Fiat aquisition of Chrysler still feels like an intentional failure like “Springtime for Hitler” in The Producers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springtime_for_Hitler
The play is chosen by the producer Max Bialystock and his accountant Leo Bloom in their fraudulent scheme to raise substantial funding by selling 25,000% of a play, causing it to fail, and keeping all of the remaining money for themselves. In order to ensure that the play is a total failure, Max selects an incredibly tasteless script (which he describes as “practically a love letter to Adolf Hitler”), hires the worst director he can find, (Roger DeBris, a stereotypical homosexual and transvestite caricature) and casts an out-of-control hippie named Lorenzo St. DuBois, also known by his initials “L.S.D.”, in the role of Hitler (after he had wandered into the wrong theatre by mistake during the casting call).
“BDB :
September 21st, 2009 at 1:06 pm .. Remember how Ford gets panned around here by some for using the name “Taurus” on a full-size flagship sedan?”
Ford’s strategy and design history on the Taurus was very poor and unnecessarily confusing.
The original Taurus was a huge home run, and deservedly so, the exterior styling was far superior to anything that walked in the mid-80s.
The second gen “Oval” Taurus was, also deservedly, a huge disaster. It looked terrible, like a frog or a catfish, up front, and the rear was no better.
The third gen was not a successor of the above two, but a renaming of the much bigger FOrd 500, which looked inoffensive but also like a bloated VW Passat.
Now they are out with a totally different 4th gen “Taurus”, much heavier (unnecessarily!) but not much bigger inside than the original, and much smaller than the Gen III above inside.
The new Taurus will never be the company-saving home run that Taurus I was, which would sell more copies than the Accord and the Camry put together, back then, over 400,000 copies.
The latest taurus is planned for 100,000 copies. That makes it utterly insignificant in my book, when the Accord, the Camry and the Altima together sell well in excess of TEN TIMES that!
It is unfortunate to see Taurus lose its way. AND BTW, I saw a comparison test between the new Taurusd and an Accord, and the Accord won even tho it was $4k cheaper! NOT GOOD for FOrd.
“Lincoln’s names aren’t that confsuing. MKZ=Mark Zephyr, MKS=Mark Sedan, MKX=Mark Crossover, MKT=Mark Touring. ”
MArk Zephyr? What the hell is a Zephyr? (it is not a type of vehicle, like the crossover or the sedan!) it is also INCONSISTENT with your other names, which do make sense.
“It isn’t anymore confusing than ES, LS, GS, and IS.”
Lexus names are not ideal either, and Acura and Infi names are even worse, Acuras may be worse than even Lincoln. No wonder Acura is going to hell the last few years.
BDB & Autosavant:
In the 60s and 70s they controlled 90% of the US luxury car market.
They were the only game in town, pretty much. There weren’t any BMW dealers in small town America in 1975, and Lexus didn’t even exist yet.
Cadillac and Lincoln in the 1970s were like two kindergardeners so busy fighting each other, they didn’t see somebody else taking all the candy. I am convinced that GM and Ford pissed away their huge lead by awful, awful quality during that era. Mercedes was the only other game in town by the 70s and even though they were smaller, more expensive and offered nowhere near the power, they excelled in quality materials, construction and engineering. It is pretty sad that Chrysler could not even compete with Cad and Linoln even in their most diminshed state. Although the 74-75 Imperial was beautiful and looked pretty good on paper, it just didn’t feel very much like a luxury car.
BMW, Audi and the rest were in no way competition for Caddy and Lincoln. BMW was still building the 2002 and Audi was selling the Fox.
“They’ve only gotten their stuff together very recently (well Lincoln and Cadillac anyway). Now they just need some good marketing.”
I strongly disagree. Cadillac is doing a bit better than Lincoln, better exterior stylign abd much better performance from its “halo” V cars, but ordinary caddys that most people buy are far from satisfactory (interiors).
” I’d take an MKZ with standard leather heated/cooled seats”
WHY? Isn’t it a rebadged Fusion you can buy for $10k less and has a less offensive grille?
” over an ES with freaking *standard cloth* seats for more money!”
I always had deep contempt for these rebadged CAMRYS, the ES’s. For me the only Lexus that counts is the LS. The GS has also failed to sell in any serious numbers. Lexus is too much Buick in performance to find it attractive.
BTW, back in the 50s, some Cadillacs (like the $20,000 biarritz) were more expensive than Rolls Royces and Bentleys, which went for $17,000!!!
And maybe they deserved to be more expensive, if you compared their tech features and overall value.
What the hell is a Zephyr?
The car that saved Lincoln during the great depression.
The new Taurus will never be the company-saving home run that Taurus I was
It’s not intended to be, it’s not even competing with the camry or accord (that’s what the fusion is for), but rather the avalon.
Accord won even tho it was $4k cheaper! NOT GOOD for FOrd.
The accord won on price.
WHY? Isn’t it a rebadged Fusion you can buy for $10k less and has a less offensive grille?
Outside of Merc. and BMW that’s all and all what luxury brands are now (and even those two are sharing components and platforms within thier groupings).
The American luxury marques, Cadillac and Lincoln, yielded the field to M-B, BMW, Lexus and now Audi. Cadillac seems to be finding its way with the CTS and its coupe and wagon variants. Now Cadillac needs a flagship to compete with the big boys, the E and S class M-Bs, the LS Lexus and the 5 & 7 series BMWs. While the MKS may help Lincoln retain some customers they lost when they discontinued the Town Car, it’s a warmed over D platform (Five Hundred, Volvo S80, Taurus). Still, it’s more of a luxury sedan than anything Chrysler makes right now. The RWD LX platform could be the basis of a true luxury car – the platform kinda sorta started out as an E Class Merc, and the Imperial and 200C concepts are attractive cars. I’m just skeptical that Chrysler could deliver on the interior quality and overall fit and finish to compete with true luxury marques.
I think this is a situation where some asked the execs at Chrysler “What’s going on?” and the execs at Chrysler had to say something.
We all know product lead times in the car business are long. We all know that Chrysler had very little in the pipeline for new product. So what’s an executive going to say? If he was honest, he’d have said, “Well, if we can survive, we’ll compete in every niche.”
But if he’s honest, then it’ll be his last day at work.
Anybody who thinks that Mexican-made-Fiat-engined Chryslers of an older design can compete against the latest Hondas and Toyotas and Fords and Hyundais, well, I think they need their eyes checked.
And frankly, it’s a darn shame, too.
That’s great that they have a vision for their product lines, but exactly where are they going to come up with the money to refresh and rebrand most of their line up?
It’s like the owner a football team with the worst record in the league telling the fans (or what’s left of them) how he’s going to revamp the roster with the best players possible, without saying how he’s going to achieve this or acknowledging that every other team in the league is trying to do the exact same thing.
Autosavant: The new Taurus will never be the company-saving home run that Taurus I was, which would sell more copies than the Accord and the Camry put together, back then, over 400,000 copies.
It’s not supposed to be. The Camry-Accord-Altima competitor is the Fusion. The Taurus is more of an Avalon competitor.
The original Taurus was not a direct competitor to the Accord or Camry when it debuted in late 1985. Neither was available with a V-6, and both were smaller than the Taurus. The Accord and Camry grew in size to compete with the Taurus.
Autosavant: I strongly disagree. Cadillac is doing a bit better than Lincoln, better exterior stylign abd much better performance from its “halo” V cars, but ordinary caddys that most people buy are far from satisfactory (interiors).
From what I can see, GM spent $4 billion on Cadillac, and has basically ended up where Lincoln is now. The V-Series cars haven’t made much of an impact, and the STS, XLR and original SRX were all flops.
Cadillac has been left with one decent rear-wheel-drive car (the CTS), the doddering old DTS (which gets whipped by the Town Car in the livery trade, which is the real market for this type of car) and a bunch of warmed-over Chevrolet SUVs. Not much to show for spending $4 billion…
I’m disappointed that the sentence “The Alfa Romeo Brera will be available for purchase in the United States in 2011.” never came up.
The edit function isn’t working. Let me revise what I said. The Chrysler Imperial Concept is a handsome car in some aspects. I’m not a big fan of the Rolls Royce Phantom, which the Imperial concept somewhat follows, but the Imperial is not badly executed and carries over enough styling language from the 300 to look like a Chrysler.
I was looking at a CTS yesterday, btw, and GM styling really hit the bullseye with the “art and science” thing. The CTS is really an exquisitely designed car.
“Accavitti said the Dodge brand needs to evolve, transforming the muscle-car spirit from brute force to driving dynamics.”
So, in other words, they are rewinding the clock back 14 years, to make Dodge like it was in 1996, before Daimler screwed them up.
Nothing wrong with that. Dodge was probably the strongest American brand out there in the 90s.
As long as the PT Cruiser exists, Chrysler can never be taken seriously as a luxury brand. It’s MSRP starts at $18k and change, and in the real world you can buy one for three or four grand less than that. You know, the list price of the cheapest Scion (which sells for full MSRP). When your luxury brand has a product that is the same price as the cheapest product in your competitor’s entry level brand, your branding is screwed up beyond all repair.
Yes Chrysler has in its past invented some nitches that saved the company. But you cannot run a long term strategy based on an occasional Hail Mary. You create a sustainable company by offering competitive products, cultivating and continuous improvements of those products, focusing on creating a core of dedicated buyers, and winning over new ones from other brands with value and resale. Instead, Chrysler has always relied on some amazing car to come along once in a while to save them – while ignoring and rebadging their current products for years and losing those buyers to churn of poor product planning.
“I’m disappointed that the sentence “The Alfa Romeo Brera will be available for purchase in the United States in 2011.” never came up.”
Not unless they plan on re-badging Alfa models as Chrysler. It would be a quick and dirty way to make Chrysler a luxury marque.
Yes, someone should have asked “Why don’t you put a Chrysler badge on the Alfa 159?”
I suppose the objection would be that Alfa doesn’t meet US safety regulations. But if the US Gummint wants to help Chrysler, I’d rather it allow Euro-spec cars to be legal in the US than to pour more taxpayer money into feeble carmakers.
Apparently no one here knows Cadillac’s nomenclature.
CTS: Catera Touring Sedan
DTS: Deville Touring Sedan
STS: Seville Touring Sedan
SLS: Seville Luxury Sedan
ETC: Eldorado Touring Coupe
XLR: Extreme Luxury Roadster
And so on. I always cringe when everyone says CTS Coupe. When it’s finally released, it will almost certainly be called the CTC. The 5-door variant is officially called the Sports Wagon, so there won’t be a CTW.
Nobody cares about Cadillac’s nomenclature. It’s all WTF to most people.
jpcavanaugh :
September 21st, 2009 at 2:18 pm
BMW, Audi and the rest were in no way competition for Caddy and Lincoln. BMW was still building the 2002 and Audi was selling the Fox.
Actually BMW was selling the 2800/3.0/Bavaria, the predecessor to the 5-Series, plus the 3.0CSL. Audi had the 100LS. All those cars were commanding and getting premium pricing. Yes, no match for Cadillac or Lincoln in volume but that was the start of it all.
@forditude:
Apparently no one here knows Cadillac’s nomenclature.
Which strongly suggests it’s no damn good.
(“ETC”? Um, yeah, that’s already taken. It’s short for “Etcetera”, which means “and so on”. Guess Cadillac’s naming committee didn’t get the memo or something.)
BDB :
September 21st, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Just another example, look at Cadillac. They’re finally back to luxury level and getting prestige now, but it took them decades to live down the Cimarron.
I wouldn’t go quite that far. I’d say they began re-establishing credibility with the new STS and CTS, and that was only a few years ago (2003, I think?). Before that, they were selling a at least three front-drive float boats with no performance cred, the ‘Slade, and the Catera.
With some commitment, you can change things pretty quickly.
Ronnie Schreiber :
September 21st, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Cadillac seems to be finding its way with the CTS and its coupe and wagon variants. Now Cadillac needs a flagship to compete with the big boys, the E and S class M-Bs, the LS Lexus and the 5 & 7 series BMWs.
Agreed…on the E-Class and 5-series fighter. But I think they need to re-establish the brand more firmly before chasing the $80,000 luxo-wagons.
The STS has the platform and mechanical basics to go up against the mid-size sedans, but it needs a little stretching (the back room is way too tight for a car that big), and sharper styling.
And the Chrysler-bashing continues…this time, we’re bashing them for apparently not having a complete set of fully rendered new models, complete with technical specifications, ready to drive only a couple of months after the company came out of bankruptcy.
Those lazy bastards!
redrum :
September 21st, 2009 at 3:14 pm
It’s like the owner a football team with the worst record in the league telling the fans (or what’s left of them) how he’s going to revamp the roster with the best players possible, without saying how he’s going to achieve this or acknowledging that every other team in the league is trying to do the exact same thing.
AKA….Detroit Lions
RNader:
Unfortunately the Lions don’t make a great analogy since they’ve increase dramatically in value over the years.
But the point regarding ongoing management failures is taken.
A great football team is easy to build, unlike a car company..
My recipe for a great football team (reference Steelers and Patriots)
Step 1) Hire good coaching staff that has expertise in a winning system
Step 2) Dump players (no matter how good they are) that don’t fit the system and keep players that do
Step 3) Draft players that fit the system
Step 4) Owners that believe in the system and watch to ensure that the coaches execute well
Step 5) Replace coaches, players as needed make the system work and ensure that a fresh pool of talent (talent as defined by being able to execute the system) is available
Step 6) Only the owners/GM can change the system and if they do they have two choices..
a) all at once and have a number of loosing seasons
b) very very slowly so that nobody really notices
How is that for an off-topic post?
I hate it when people get this wrong.
You guys have your Taurus generations all kinds of wrong.
Read this:
http://www.taurusclub.com/encyclopedia/Basic.html
@lw
Great post. Best on TTAC in quite a while. Fixing a car company follows the same loose outline, but you have 50,000+ players.
Suckers game.
The broad array of products across every segment will all come with a DVD instead of Owner’s Manuals to save money and space.
http://www.detnews.com/article/20090921/AUTO01/909210402/1361/Chrysler-puts-bulky-owner-s-manual-on-DVD
You’re being far to generous, William Clay Ford doesn’t even try.
The car he is referring to is almost certainly the Alfa-Romeo 169, which was supposed to relaunch the Alfa brand in North America this year. There has been speculation that it would have (an already federalized) Maserati V-8 stuffed into it to generate interest. With Fiat resources, they should do quite well. Remember, Chrysler is much smaller than GM or Ford. All they need is two or three modest hits to make money. And they have that, particularly if they can sell enough Rams to break even.
Minivans are unexciting, but they are very steady in middle America where large families are more common. Add in a compact diesel/gas pickup for both Jeep and Dodge and a Ram 1500 diesel…and a Fiat-sourced compact car that doesn’t sell for pennies at the dollar like the Caliber.
They also can use Fiat’s diesel technology. It wouldn’t work for Ford or GM who require bigger volumes, but it could work for Chrysler the way AWD did for Subaru. But put a diesel in the 300C and get something unique that adds another 20k units a year. Add it to the Ram and get another 30k units a year.
Bring over the Strada to compete with the Ranger and get another 50k units a year… and heck, stick the same diesel in that too, since it will already be federalized. 50k units from Fiat 500, 30k Mito, and maybe 10k Alfa 169’s with 10% of those having a Maserati engine…I doubt that would go for under $60k.
Where they still have a hole is competing against the Accord- the Charger/300C is too old and Fiat doesn’t make a car big enough.
I think Fiat can be successful:
Dodge/Fiat 500 Small Car
Dodge/Fiat Grand Punto small car
Dodge Charger large sedan.
Dodge/Chrysler minivan
Dodge/Fiat Strada small pickup
Dodge Dakota mid-size pickup
Dodge Ram pickup
Dodge Journey mid-size SUV
Chrysler/Fiat Mito Small Premium Car
Chrysler/Alfa 159 mid-size premium sedan
Chrysler/Alfa Romeo 169 Large premium 4-door CC
Chrysler 300 large sedan.