Hongqi CA750f.
It’s one of those Tuesday afternoons here in Beijing. The air is barely breathable, and somewhere, a hammer drill is duking it out with a concrete ceiling. Time for another installment of Tycho’s Illustrated History Of Chinese Cars. Today we have a very interesting Chinese car. It’s a 1983 Dodge 600 sedan, dressed-up as a Hongqi CA750F. How did it get into China? (Read More…)
Self-service junkyards, which tend to price parts based on type rather than vehicle of origin, don’t tend to get many “factory hot rod” cars of semi-recent vintage. Such cars usually get snapped up by specialty yards or shops at the auctions where big self-serve yards get their stock, so I did a double-take when I found this very solid-looking ’98 Neon R/T at my local yard. (Read More…)
Chrylser’s U.S. plants are working flat-out, and reopening closed plants is not an option, Fiat & Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne tells the Milan daily Corriere della Sera in a wide-ranging interview. Plants and workers in other countries, such as Mexico, Canada or Europe will have to fill a third of the U.S. demand for Chryslers. Marchionne thinks that “demand for cars in Europe will remain low for long. At least until 2014.” He counts on increasing U.S. demand for made-in-Italy Chryslers to keep his Italian plants open. If that demand should slacken, then … (Read More…)
So, after Chrysler got those government-backed loans that saved the company in 1979— take note, members of the Iacocca Jihad, that I am not calling those loans a bailout (even though Uncle Sam would have been forced to cover them if Chrysler had failed), and thus you may rest easy that this writer is not lumping your favorite Italian-owned corporation in with the People’s Democratic Cadres’ Bailed-Out Motors Corporation— everything hinged on the K-platform cars being a success. And they were! (Read More…)
Days after Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney penned an op-ed in the Detroit News over his thoughts on the bailout, UAW President Bob King is firing back.
Chrysler alerted the Securities and Exchange Commission that they’d be withdrawing their request for as much as $3.5 billion in loans. The money was to be used for the development of unspecified “green” vehicles.
From Bloomberg’s intellectual property news, February 15, 2012:
“Daimler AG (DAI)‘s Chrysler unit’s Super Bowl advertisement featuring Clint Eastwood was temporarily taken down from Google Inc. (GOOG)‘s YouTube video-sharing service Feb. 13 following an infringement claim from the National Football League, the Baltimore Sun reported. (Read More…)
I love progress, I love technology, and I don’t have an aversion to comfort. With that in mind, the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon and I seem like an unlikely pairing. Jeep promises however that they have made the most civilized Wrangler ever without sacrificing off-road performance. While Wrangler shoppers with kids and a commute may be inclined to opt for the four-door Jeeplet, the 2-door variety has a large California following from the hip urban set to “rural-suburbanites” like myself, especially since GM killed off Hummer.
So what about Chrysler’s halftime ad? You know, the one with a Clint Eastwood who looked like he would die on the set? It did not show up in any of the Edmunds.com rankings. It is neither on the “that ad’s the bomb!” list. Nor is it on the list of ads that bombed. Maybe because Edmunds could not find the car. Car? What car? The ad tried really hard to repeat the “Imported from Detroit” success. Instead, the ad created a lot of controversy. Controversy? The [forbidden word] hit the fan! It might cost Obama the election! (Read More…)
Some of the B&B doubted the veracity of early renderings, but it turns out they were accurate. This is the Fiat 500L, the car that’s supposed to boost Fiat sales here in the USA and carry on the legacy of the very unique looking Multipla. Despite carrying the “500” moniker, the 500L, like the Multipla, is a B segment car.
Today, Chrysler reported its first yearly profit since 1997. It was $183 million net profit on $55 billion net revenue. Not earth shattering as car companies go, but a start: Chrysler wants to turn this into $1.5 billion of net profit in 2012 and $65 billion of revenue. At the same time, Fiat-Chrysler cut its 2012 revenue target to 75 billion, due to a slowing demand for cars in a weakening European economy. Fiat will not pay a dividend for ordinary shares in 2011. (Read More…)
Now that I’m scouring eBay Australia for crazy Detroit Down Under cars— maybe even as crazy as a 4-71-blown six-cylinder Torana— I’ve been dragged once again into the Whirlpool Of Arcane Internet Car Knowledge. You know how that goes: you go to look up the Australian Falcon on Wikipedia, a reference to the Valiant Charger leads you to the mother of all Chrysler-related online time-sucks, and then your whole day is used up. This time, Allpar sent me to Valiant.org, and that’s where I found the page on the Chrysler Hemi-Six engine. There you’ll find a description by a Chrysler engineer of how his Australian counterparts tested their new (American-designed) engine: (Read More…)
“Chrysler Group has elevated the art of the striptease to a new level with the release of its first official image of the next-generation SRT Viper,” claims Automotive News [sub] . Not just the art of the striptease. Also the fine art practiced by the bar maiden who purrs into your pricked ear: “If you come here more often, then maybe …” (Read More…)
By early 1979, Chrysler was really circling the drain. Lee Iacocca was in, the “too big to fail” government bailout loan wasn’t a sure thing, rebadged Simcas and Mitsubishis weren’t luring many subcompact shoppers into showrooms, and the front-wheel-drive K platform was still a couple of years from showrooms. Let’s follow up yesterday’s Chrysler Malaise Era Death Spiral Junkyard Find with the quasi-luxury car Chrysler hoped would help the company stagger, zombie-like, into the 1980s. (Read More…)
When I saw the interior of today’s Junkyard Find, I knew: I must have that Corinthian Leather bench seat! Maybe I’ll put it in the back of my ’66 Dodge A100 van, or maybe I’ll just convert it into a comfy, Ricardo Montalban-grade garage couch. Either way, I returned to the junkyard yesterday with a sense of grim determination: that seat will be mine! (Read More…)
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