Comments on: Chrysler Collapses

By: Hugo

Hugo — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:14:34 +0000

Thanks, Ken and Jon, for your well-wishes. In the end, there, the plastered forearm with nitrile-gloved fingers did seem to take on behaviors all its own; for example, in thrusting straight-armed salutes to the gangbanger hearses minted by Daimler-Benz-Mopar.

Although I do worry about the Diesel line and about whatever other patents might be vital to our commercial and personal fleet — the fleet that keeps the economy fleet — I don’t care whether Chrysler continues to field passenger vehicles. What’s to miss? It’s just regrettable that they may have taken down the Jeep brand, which brand never really belonged to them in the first place. In the span of just two or three years, Jeep became a company specializing in producing and selling vehicles incapable of handling the sort of off-road conditions for which even the average Subaru is well equipped.

To say that the Germans deliberately sabbotaged the company is probably an understatement. I say we get some fellow duffers, pull together some scratch, and throw the interlopers out of Pebble, taking out, say, Porsche for all time while we’re at it. I fancy a Porsche Woody V-8; how ’bout you?

Mein DasseinMeister Klaus ist convinced dat diss ist der Futur uffen der Woody wagon. The Volk in Hamburg and Berlin will eat it up! (I picture a promo involving free, color-quoordinated surboards for the roof-rack option!)

Hat’s off, Ken, for “spendy gas”.

Wasn’t that Harry Truman’s political mentor, BTW?

By: Jon Taplin

Jon Taplin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:11:18 +0000

Hugo- I second the welcome back. I do think the German’s fucked it up, but they were smart enough to unload it on an overconfident Hedge Fund Baron just before the market for their gangster mobiles tanked.

By: Ken Ballweg

Ken Ballweg — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:55:14 +0000

Welcome back Hugo. Glad to see the wrist healed, and all is well there I assume.

Phil’s right. The Hemi, while a marvel of engineering was designed to haul a lot of weight in a straight line, fast. They really put a lot into trucks, and recapturing the Chrysler 300’s glory days. Bad bets both in the days of spendy gas.

By: len bullard

len bullard — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:09:43 +0000

Ugly is the operative word. I’ve been amazed at what I see driving on the roads. It is as if styling had become Soviet. Bug ugly.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:13:47 +0000

The question will be which foreign maker steps up to buy Chrysler? The Chinese are eager to enter the U.S. market, but no Chinese firm is big enough yet to have the leverage.

If Tata hadn’t just bought Jaguar and Land Rover off Ford, they would be interested, but my money is on Fiat or Renault.

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:13:47 +0000

Chrysler was dying long before Daimler. I spent more than ten years in the automotive biz, as a parts guy and wrench-twister, and I know first-hand what utter shite Chrysler products were and are.

Fugly, over-powered and under-engineered, consciously marketed to the same knuckle-dragging demographic that is going to present the greatest impediment to real change in attitudes and behavior as we transition to a post-oil world. That’s the new Chrysler.

By: Hugo

Hugo — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:30:52 +0000

That’s Panzer.

By: Hugo

Hugo — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:20:57 +0000

I think it’s the fault of Daimler Benz. Just when Jeep Chrysler Dodge was doing well, in kommen der schmartzyfartsies, to dump old German tooling on American assembly lines, to capture the Jeep name with its marketability, to lock up the rights to revival of the relatively fuel efficient HEMI engine (a kind of GM Northstar, but with pedigree), and to dismantle and glue back together their own German, Brindle-Fly versions of existing Chrysler platforms. The results are hideous, as anyone can see. The choices run mainly to a gangster’s hearse, a gangster’s muscle car, a gangster’s roadster that comes with its own Platinum blonde and luggage by Mark Cross, and various revivals of our beloved German Tanzer Division, the Jeep line.

How come we seem never to call it “cultural imperialism” when it happens to us?

By: Jon Taplin

Jon Taplin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 04:45:02 +0000

Yeah- He bought GMAC from GM. Another brilliant move.

By: Morgan Warstler

Morgan Warstler — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 04:28:30 +0000

Hey Jon, do you know anything else about Feinberg?