Re: And NOW, the Big 3 are doing what Packard couldn't do...

Posted by Loyd Smith On 2009/4/4 1:45:06

Gerardo,

There's little doubt in anyone's mind who has ever lived overseas, anywhere, but that Fiat IS a world player and has been, lo, these many, many years. Fiat had major problems in the United States because, like Morris, Renault and many other European manufacturers of the time, they didn't appear to really understand the distances, extreme heat and sustained highway speeds inherent in driving in this country. Fiats are plentiful all over the world (as are Renaults) yet, as in a recent post by Irish Packard, Chrysler is capable of building a serviceable, reliable product for use in other parts of the world. Chrysler, for many years, was a pioneer in innovative engineering. Their downfall occurred during the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. There still wasn't anything wrong with their engineering and design efforts (to any greater extent than any other of the U.S. manufacturers) but they suffered even more unnecessary and unforgivable quality control problems than GM, Ford and AMC. After they quit building Packards, I owned several dependable Chrysler products and liked them until the trim started falling off of them, the fit and finish deteriorated and I got one (1975) that only had primer under the paint on the front half of the car.

I think that the marriage between Chrysler and Fiat could turn out to have positive advantages to all of their two sets of customers and might well be good for both companies.