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Under the leadership of stellar executives Clyde Campbell and Veronica Johns, FCA Australia loaned out “hundreds” of vehicles, all of which the company would like returned.
That’s too bad as FCA doesn’t know exactly where they all are.
Australia’s Daily Telegraph (via Automotive News) is reporting that FCA is still trying to find the vehicles that were part of the company’s ambassador program, meant to put popular individuals in the seats of their products, valued at $10M AUD ($7.75M USD).
As reported earlier, records on the vehicles are shaky, with many of them given away without anyone at the company tracking their whereabouts.
14 Comments on “FCA Australia Can’t Locate $8M Worth of Loaned Jeeps...”
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Lol…awesome! How can I get in on that program?
Yeah… Imagine if you stole one from someone who had it loaned to them… Does FCA even have the vins?
Do you even record keep bro?
This is unfortunately not surprising from FCA.
you have to be kidding me?
why would any company just loan out a product like that? pure marketing? o look what that cool person is driving. i want to go buy one.
if fca spent 8 million dollars on that kind of marketing i hope they lose most of it, some get in accidents and sue fca.
really, if someone offered you a free car as a ‘loaner’ but did not take the requisite information so that it could be returned don’t you think those same folks would say ‘hey, i know it’s mostly untraceable i think i will sell it, or pass it on to a relative or friend.
this type of marketing rarely works. but there are all sorts of unintended consequences.
I suspect information was taken… each marketing person that gave one out probably has his own shoebox/rolodex/postit note/spreadsheet with the information, and getting it all together throughout the company is the challenge.
Australia is a HUGE country. These things could be anywhere.
Maybe they went to Jurassic World.
This sort of thing happens all the time.
There was a point where a vendor lent my company a $2-300K piece of equipment for us to learn how to install and play with it in our lab. They completely lost track of it, and had no idea we even had it when we asked it they wanted it back a couple years later. We have now had it for *8* years. And believe me, they sell a tiny fraction of these things compared to the volumes car makers deal with.
Reminds me of the episode of gas monkey when Richard Rawlins and crew removed the drivetrain from a SRT challenger and stuffed it into a Cuda’.
Why can’t GM loan me a ZL1 Camaro, that has no vin and has to be destroyed when the testing is done. I would love that drivetrain in my 57′. Too bad really, I will settle for the escalade donor though. How many of these units became parts cars?
Let us see. Cars all have Vehicle Identification numbers. They are even in multiple locations to annoy thieves.
Cars are registered. You need a VIN to do this. When a car is built, the VIN and a Certificate of Origin are issued.
They have to know the VIN. I’m sure they can somehow access the public registration records.
I call BS.
Unless the cars were stolen from one nation (say, the US) and sent to somewhere else (Russia, South American) where the authorities don’t care about US laws…which isn’t the case.
I know this is OZ. They collect so much money in camera fines that they have to have good registration records.
The FCA boss who is now facing charges was once involved in a car theft ring……still boggles my mind as to how he could end up being a CEO of a car division! Don’t they have back ground checks in AUS?
“In January 1991, Clyde Anthony Campbell, then aged 23, appeared before Melbourne Magistrates Court and pleaded guilty to two charges of of receiving stolen goods and one charge of obtaining property by deception after being found in possession of a stolen vehicle. Mr Campbell was sentenced to a good behaviour bond of $2000 for 12 months, fined $1000 and ordered to pay $10,000 in compensation.”
http://www.smh.com.au/business/fiat-chrysler-boss-was-involved-with-car-theft-gang-20150613-ghn2e2.html
People too “important” to have a satellite tracer installed in their car, you don’t want the press to find you if you’re famous and the tracker hacked I suppose.
It would seem that a whole bunch of auto executives around the world are importing their Class 2’s from the USA.
I tried to suggest that FCA Australia would be the perfect administrators of a certain USA health care program. Apparently you can’t use any reference to the Exalted One without censure here.
That said, they would be the perfect administrators of *INSERT ANY US FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PROGRAM HERE.*