"In this area of building four wheel drive vehicles and SUVs Fiat lacks the knowledge to compete on the world stage."

http://motortorque.askaprice.com/reviews/auto-0604/fiats-sweet-little-sixteen.asp

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portlandon : that's a funny story.

Sad thing is, GM didn't even learn from the Cimmaron. Years later they took a homely family sedan, the Opel Omega, (didn't even bother to change the styling, except for the front grille texture) gave it a Cadillac badge and called it the Catera.

Advertising featured Cindy Crawford (by then pretty much retired from modeling) and an animated duck.

The advertising tag line: "The Caddy that zigs".

Is it any wonder that American luxury car buyers turned to Lexus?

The Japanese and German auto execs must have been breaking out the champagne when they saw that one.

Oh... and then there was Ford putting a Lincoln badge on a Ford Granada and calling it the Lincoln Versailles...

...and yet sales are good, financially the company is sound and it's seen as Chrysler's salvation.

Strange isn't it. Perhaps you should notify Chrysler and warn them of what they're getting into...

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"The jury is still out around the world about Fiat."

Countries where Fiat has manufacturing plants:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_locations_of_Fiat_Group_car_manufacturing_sites.png

Now please show us a map of where Chrysler has manufacturing plants.

Thanks in advance.

<a href="http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v33/ronaldo/?action=view¤t=chrysler_sebring_sedan.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/ronaldo/chrysler_sebring_sedan.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

Packard53: Exactly right.

And Fiat was abandoned not only by the US market, but also the Italian and European market as well.

But in the meantime, modern engineering, stylish design, creative advertising, and intelligent leadership have certainly turned things around.

But today Chrysler is in such bad shape that my only hope is that their association with Fiat does not tarnish Fiat's reputation.....

Well said Gusha.

Owen_Dyneto: I went back and read your post... my point is simply that Americans left Detroit cars because Detroit played them for fools.... so it's kind of understandable why Americans don't support them.

GM really thought Americans would be stupid enough to think they could get away with putting a Cadillac badge on Cavalier and no one would think anything of it. It's just one of hundreds of small examples of how they regarded their customers.

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Zenith TVs: again a question of design... of style. Sony and Panasonic were making cool looking things while Zenith and the others were still pushing those hideous wood cabinet French Provincial/Early American/ Mediterranean style monstrosities. Even their portables had the usual dose of plastic wood and chrome plated plastic. No thanks.

Sony and Panasonic had modern design and cool advertising.

Oh c'mon.... it was sure easy to be patriotic and buy American cars when American cars were those beautiful Bonnevilles, Impalas, Galaxies, Mustangs, Camaros, Rivieras, Continentals, GTOs, Thunderbirds, Toronados, Eldorados, Devilles, 300s, Furys, Polaras, Chevelles, GTXs, 442s, ... back in the 1960s the only foreign car a kid lusted after was maybe an XKE.

Bottom line: Detroit has been turning out crappy products since the mid 1970's or so. Sleek lines gave way to padded vinyl roofs, "opera windows", faux "classic" radiator shells and crushed velour interiors. Everything started to look dorky or like a friggin' pimp-mobile. Suddenly, no one under the age of 60 wanted to be seen driving those things.

Then they started with the down-sizing of once majestic cars: instead of re-engineering them into something smaller but sophisticated they cheapened the brands into compact caricatures of their former selves. Thunderbirds looked like Fairmonts, Eldorados and Rivieras looked like Skylarks. They just trashed every great name there was.

I could go on and on with so many examples... but the big-three drove their car customers away.

Note: European car sales during the month of March (with the help of incentives to the consumer) are up rather nicely :

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE5302LA20090401?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

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re:

"No doubt management has a lot to answer for. But so has the government. They have been socking the auto industry over the head every chance they got since the 60s. The unions have been milking the industry since they got the upper hand in the 50s."

Would someone explain how European and Japanese manufacturers do it? They also have tough CAFE and safety standards, difficult unions, and workers have all kinds of rights and privileges... and yet they seem to do OK.

Yes, I wondered about that too: if it's really the lower camera height that makes this car look so good. In fact that's one reason why I'd like to see more photos.

The 1956 400 posted below is seen in the "Packard Pictures" section of Packardinfo. To my eyes, it is the most beautiful '56 I've ever seen. I don't think I've ever seen a solid black 400... the color really brings out the cars styling. It looks luxury-car rich but also young and sporty.

Of course 2 and 3 tone cars were the rage in '56... but bodies were usually solid color in the luxury car segment and I think the Packard looks best this way.

There is only this pic and one other posted but I'd really love to see more of this car.

Could more pics be posted? Or is it posted on any other web site by any chance?

( hope I haven't offended other 56 owners by calling this the most beautiful, but man does it look good... )




<a href="http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v33/ronaldo/?action=view¤t=1660.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/ronaldo/1660.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

The Bugatti Veyron costs around $1.4 million and is built at a loss for Volkswagen. Magnificent German engineering ....but it's play at Italian heritage rings false. What a shame they took Giugiaro's original styling and handed it over to a designer from Skoda.... it has too many "production car" styling touches...that front end could be an Alfa sedan.

Personally I'd chose the real thing...the Maserati MC12 Stradale. And it's only $800.000.... the claimed top speed is a little slower than the Bugatti at 205mph vs. 235... but I'm sure it could be tweaked...
<a href="http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v33/ronaldo/?action=view¤t=Maserati_MC12_Stradale.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/ronaldo/Maserati_MC12_Stradale.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

...or I could ante up $2.5 million and buy a Ferrari FXX....

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From today's NYTimes:

Chrysler's New Ally Takes a Pragmatic Approach

By BILL VLASIC

DETROIT -- The last two times Chrysler was sold -- to Daimler-Benz in 1998 and to Cerberus Capital Management in 2007 -- its new owners promised nothing less than a remarkable renaissance for the smallest of Detroit's Big Three.

But Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive of the Fiat Group, the Italian carmaker, has no such grand visions for his company's prospective alliance with Chrysler. His company's plan to take a 35 percent stake in Chrysler is accompanied by a blunt assessment of its prospects.

"I think Chrysler has all the prerequisites to survive," Mr. Marchionne said Monday in an interview. "But the bigger issue is, What does it look like two or three years from now? It's not as if Fiat is going to show up and Cinderella is going to be magically turned into something else."

Chrysler has been struggling to avoid bankruptcy since last year, when it joined General Motors and Ford in asking for federal aid to make it through the worst downturn in the United States auto industry in more than 25 years.

Chrysler has received $4 billion in government loans, and is counting on getting an additional $3 billion by April to stay in business.

For Chrysler, its deal with Fiat -- announced last month -- is the linchpin of its turnaround effort.

In exchange for a 35 percent stake, Fiat will let Chrysler build small cars using a number of its "platforms" -- the automobile industry term for the mechanical underpinnings of a vehicle, including engines -- so that Chrysler can broaden its lineup beyond large pickups, S.U.V.'s and minivans. This current mix is one reason Chrysler's sales have fallen so quickly over the last year.

The deal will also allow Fiat to re-enter the American market, from which it withdrew in 1984, and to eventually build Fiat and Chrysler models together on assembly lines in the United States and Europe.

The talks between Chrysler and Fiat started last summer when it completed a deal to buy a Chrysler engine plant in Brazil.

Mr. Marchionne, Fiat's chief executive since 2004, said he had no designs to become involved with Chrysler on a large scale.

But after initial discussions with Thomas W. LaSorda, a Chrysler vice chairman, Mr. Marchionne said he started seeing a Chrysler-Fiat alliance as a logical combination for both parties.

"We're not doing this because we're good Samaritans," Mr. Marchionne said. "We're willing to take a risk on investing technology and time to help Chrysler come back to life and bring value to Fiat shareholders."

After meeting in recent days with Chrysler executives at company headquarters in suburban Detroit, Mr. Marchionne offered a utilitarian appraisal of how the two automakers could help each other.

"We have to get back to being metal bashers," he said. "We need to go back to some simple rules of making and selling cars."

Mr. Marchionne, 56, has taken just such a basic approach to remaking Fiat from a bloated conglomerate into a leaner, more focused competitor in the European auto market.

Previously head of the Swiss industrial testing company SGS Group, he was recruited by members of Fiat's founding Agnelli family to shake up the auto company. Mr. Marchionne promptly unwound an unsuccessful alliance with G.M., and divested the company of airline, insurance and banking divisions that he said had distracted Fiat from the car business.

An outsider in the clubby Italian business establishment, Mr. Marchionne is plain-spoken and informal. Instead of suits, he favors open-collared shirts and cashmere sweaters. He unapologetically conducts interviews while working his way through a pack of Marlboro cigarettes.

He sees Chrysler's problems -- too much capacity, no access to capital, a need for more fuel-efficient vehicles -- as symptoms of an industrywide illness.

"We all have to do the restructuring that is needed, no matter how painful," he said. "We have to be willing to restructure to make sure that we can sell what we build."

With the right products, he said Chrysler could make money on its 11 percent share of the United States market, even if industry sales remained depressed.

Analysts say they think that Fiat's small-car expertise could at least give Chrysler the opportunity to make a transition from its dependence on larger vehicles.

"Fiat's inclusion into the future equation allows Chrysler a technology and economies-of-scale lifeline," said Michael Robinet, head of global vehicle forecasts for CSM Worldwide. "But other daunting challenges remain."

Fiat itself is profitable, but the company has made no commitment to put cash into Chrysler. Instead, Fiat will offer vehicle platforms that Chrysler can modify with its own designs and interiors to appeal to fuel-conscious American consumers.

Industry observers who were ready to write Chrysler off as a lost cause see Mr. Marchionne's back-to-basics approach as its only hope.

"He appears to have done a remarkable job in getting Fiat's quality and sales back up," said Jerome York, a former Chrysler executive who has advised the billionaire Kirk Kerkorian on his investments in the auto industry.

But it will take at least two years before Fiat cars can be remade into Chrysler models. Mr. Marchionne sidestepped questions on whether an additional $3 billion in government loans would be enough to keep the company solvent until then.

He said that it was "up to Chrysler" to negotiate lower labor costs with the United Automobile Workers and to shrink its debt to qualify for more loans.

And Mr. Marchionne is unfazed by some in Congress who question whether American taxpayers should lend more money to Chrysler if it benefits a foreign automaker.

He said that Fiat could eventually get a majority ownership stake in Chrysler if certain goals were achieved.

"We are not asking for anything from Chrysler," Mr. Marchionne said. "We're not going to take any of its money. We're offering platforms, engines and a distribution network outside of North America, in exchange for an equity position. Really, the risk is all on us."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/business/03fiat.html