Ted Mittelstaedt

"Art" <begunaNOSPAMPLEASE@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:TFL2i.16337$3P3.9733@newsread3.news.pas.earth link.net...
> Interesting article but the history does not seem exactly accurate.
Indeed
> the new cars introduced in 93/94 had fit and finish problems, but they
were
> great looking and I see tons of them still around so owners certainly got
> their money's worth. Just saw someone driving a 94 LHS identical to the
one
> I sold in 99. Too bad Chrysler didn't improve them and keep the basic
> looks. But in 98/99 they introduced much higher quality cars.
> Unfortunately except for the 300M, they were all pretty ugly. However
> before the merger they were showing some great looking follow-up models.
> Too bad Mercedes killed them and put Chyrsler products years behind
> schedule.
>

Exactly. It's pretty clear to me what Chrysler has to do - they have to
take square aim at the Mercedes market. Dieter Zetsche knew this well,
but he also knew his stockholders wouldn't tolerate their precious Mercedes
brand being attacked by Chrysler vehicles.

Give Chrysler 2-3 years and some intelligent designers who aren't trying to
make political compromises to keep stockholders happy, and they will
pull out of it.

Ted

Ted Mittelstaedt

"Art" <begunaNOSPAMPLEASE@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:TFL2i.16337$3P3.9733@newsread3.news.pas.earth link.net...
> Interesting article but the history does not seem exactly accurate.
Indeed
> the new cars introduced in 93/94 had fit and finish problems, but they
were
> great looking and I see tons of them still around so owners certainly got
> their money's worth. Just saw someone driving a 94 LHS identical to the
one
> I sold in 99. Too bad Chrysler didn't improve them and keep the basic
> looks. But in 98/99 they introduced much higher quality cars.
> Unfortunately except for the 300M, they were all pretty ugly. However
> before the merger they were showing some great looking follow-up models.
> Too bad Mercedes killed them and put Chyrsler products years behind
> schedule.
>

Exactly. It's pretty clear to me what Chrysler has to do - they have to
take square aim at the Mercedes market. Dieter Zetsche knew this well,
but he also knew his stockholders wouldn't tolerate their precious Mercedes
brand being attacked by Chrysler vehicles.

Give Chrysler 2-3 years and some intelligent designers who aren't trying to
make political compromises to keep stockholders happy, and they will
pull out of it.

Ted

Ted Mittelstaedt

"Art" <begunaNOSPAMPLEASE@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:TFL2i.16337$3P3.9733@newsread3.news.pas.earth link.net...
> Interesting article but the history does not seem exactly accurate.
Indeed
> the new cars introduced in 93/94 had fit and finish problems, but they
were
> great looking and I see tons of them still around so owners certainly got
> their money's worth. Just saw someone driving a 94 LHS identical to the
one
> I sold in 99. Too bad Chrysler didn't improve them and keep the basic
> looks. But in 98/99 they introduced much higher quality cars.
> Unfortunately except for the 300M, they were all pretty ugly. However
> before the merger they were showing some great looking follow-up models.
> Too bad Mercedes killed them and put Chyrsler products years behind
> schedule.
>

Exactly. It's pretty clear to me what Chrysler has to do - they have to
take square aim at the Mercedes market. Dieter Zetsche knew this well,
but he also knew his stockholders wouldn't tolerate their precious Mercedes
brand being attacked by Chrysler vehicles.

Give Chrysler 2-3 years and some intelligent designers who aren't trying to
make political compromises to keep stockholders happy, and they will
pull out of it.

Ted

Some O

In article <TFL2i.16337$3P3.9733@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink .net>,
"Art" <begunaNOSPAMPLEASE@mindspring.com> wrote:

> Interesting article but the history does not seem exactly accurate. Indeed
> the new cars introduced in 93/94 had fit and finish problems, but they were
> great looking and I see tons of them still around so owners certainly got
> their money's worth. Just saw someone driving a 94 LHS identical to the one
> I sold in 99. Too bad Chrysler didn't improve them and keep the basic
> looks. But in 98/99 they introduced much higher quality cars.
> Unfortunately except for the 300M, they were all pretty ugly. However
> before the merger they were showing some great looking follow-up models.
> Too bad Mercedes killed them and put Chyrsler products years behind
> schedule.

Yes the LH cars were and still are great.
I've never kept a car so long as my '95 Concord and was planning to sell
it when it was 10 yrs old, but Chrysler had nothing. Fortunately my
maintenance has been minor in nature and it still performs as new,
including the great handling; still with the original shocks.
My wife loves her '91 Sebring, but I'm just a bit squashed in the front
seats and most of us know of it's 2.7L engine. >:)
The 300M was lovely and I was considering buying a few years old one,
but it has too little ground clearance for me and I'm not into leather
seats.
Now with the fast increasing gas prices my next vehicle objectives have
changed significantly. Only smaller cars now have my interest.

Yesterday as I approached my Concord from the front in a parking lot
something I saw gave me a chuckle. Right beside it was a new 300C in a
nice light grey paint job. I had to chuckle because I never could stand
the 300C styling and seeing one beside my Concord really illustrated how
ugly I feel the 300 looks. Yes some like it, but no one I know. What a
massive truck like grill and squashed window depth!

I could then see how the 300 body was designed. The Chrysler SUV
designers did it up to the windows, then the car designers did it from
there up. However the car designers couldn't use a normal window depth
that would give good vision and balance the vertical look, because the
roof would have been too high, approaching an SUV in height. <:)
So we were blessed with the 300 line, which developed a love hate in
car buyers. Unfortunately for Chrysler the love 300 bunch are a bit
limited and their buying dropped off after a few years.

Unfortunately I had to leave quickly. I wanted to stay a while to see
what (little?) body drove that monster 300.

Some O

In article <TFL2i.16337$3P3.9733@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink .net>,
"Art" <begunaNOSPAMPLEASE@mindspring.com> wrote:

> Interesting article but the history does not seem exactly accurate. Indeed
> the new cars introduced in 93/94 had fit and finish problems, but they were
> great looking and I see tons of them still around so owners certainly got
> their money's worth. Just saw someone driving a 94 LHS identical to the one
> I sold in 99. Too bad Chrysler didn't improve them and keep the basic
> looks. But in 98/99 they introduced much higher quality cars.
> Unfortunately except for the 300M, they were all pretty ugly. However
> before the merger they were showing some great looking follow-up models.
> Too bad Mercedes killed them and put Chyrsler products years behind
> schedule.

Yes the LH cars were and still are great.
I've never kept a car so long as my '95 Concord and was planning to sell
it when it was 10 yrs old, but Chrysler had nothing. Fortunately my
maintenance has been minor in nature and it still performs as new,
including the great handling; still with the original shocks.
My wife loves her '91 Sebring, but I'm just a bit squashed in the front
seats and most of us know of it's 2.7L engine. >:)
The 300M was lovely and I was considering buying a few years old one,
but it has too little ground clearance for me and I'm not into leather
seats.
Now with the fast increasing gas prices my next vehicle objectives have
changed significantly. Only smaller cars now have my interest.

Yesterday as I approached my Concord from the front in a parking lot
something I saw gave me a chuckle. Right beside it was a new 300C in a
nice light grey paint job. I had to chuckle because I never could stand
the 300C styling and seeing one beside my Concord really illustrated how
ugly I feel the 300 looks. Yes some like it, but no one I know. What a
massive truck like grill and squashed window depth!

I could then see how the 300 body was designed. The Chrysler SUV
designers did it up to the windows, then the car designers did it from
there up. However the car designers couldn't use a normal window depth
that would give good vision and balance the vertical look, because the
roof would have been too high, approaching an SUV in height. <:)
So we were blessed with the 300 line, which developed a love hate in
car buyers. Unfortunately for Chrysler the love 300 bunch are a bit
limited and their buying dropped off after a few years.

Unfortunately I had to leave quickly. I wanted to stay a while to see
what (little?) body drove that monster 300.

Some O

In article <TFL2i.16337$3P3.9733@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink .net>,
"Art" <begunaNOSPAMPLEASE@mindspring.com> wrote:

> Interesting article but the history does not seem exactly accurate. Indeed
> the new cars introduced in 93/94 had fit and finish problems, but they were
> great looking and I see tons of them still around so owners certainly got
> their money's worth. Just saw someone driving a 94 LHS identical to the one
> I sold in 99. Too bad Chrysler didn't improve them and keep the basic
> looks. But in 98/99 they introduced much higher quality cars.
> Unfortunately except for the 300M, they were all pretty ugly. However
> before the merger they were showing some great looking follow-up models.
> Too bad Mercedes killed them and put Chyrsler products years behind
> schedule.

Yes the LH cars were and still are great.
I've never kept a car so long as my '95 Concord and was planning to sell
it when it was 10 yrs old, but Chrysler had nothing. Fortunately my
maintenance has been minor in nature and it still performs as new,
including the great handling; still with the original shocks.
My wife loves her '91 Sebring, but I'm just a bit squashed in the front
seats and most of us know of it's 2.7L engine. >:)
The 300M was lovely and I was considering buying a few years old one,
but it has too little ground clearance for me and I'm not into leather
seats.
Now with the fast increasing gas prices my next vehicle objectives have
changed significantly. Only smaller cars now have my interest.

Yesterday as I approached my Concord from the front in a parking lot
something I saw gave me a chuckle. Right beside it was a new 300C in a
nice light grey paint job. I had to chuckle because I never could stand
the 300C styling and seeing one beside my Concord really illustrated how
ugly I feel the 300 looks. Yes some like it, but no one I know. What a
massive truck like grill and squashed window depth!

I could then see how the 300 body was designed. The Chrysler SUV
designers did it up to the windows, then the car designers did it from
there up. However the car designers couldn't use a normal window depth
that would give good vision and balance the vertical look, because the
roof would have been too high, approaching an SUV in height. <:)
So we were blessed with the 300 line, which developed a love hate in
car buyers. Unfortunately for Chrysler the love 300 bunch are a bit
limited and their buying dropped off after a few years.

Unfortunately I had to leave quickly. I wanted to stay a while to see
what (little?) body drove that monster 300.

Some O

In article <TFL2i.16337$3P3.9733@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink .net>,
"Art" <begunaNOSPAMPLEASE@mindspring.com> wrote:

> Interesting article but the history does not seem exactly accurate. Indeed
> the new cars introduced in 93/94 had fit and finish problems, but they were
> great looking and I see tons of them still around so owners certainly got
> their money's worth. Just saw someone driving a 94 LHS identical to the one
> I sold in 99. Too bad Chrysler didn't improve them and keep the basic
> looks. But in 98/99 they introduced much higher quality cars.
> Unfortunately except for the 300M, they were all pretty ugly. However
> before the merger they were showing some great looking follow-up models.
> Too bad Mercedes killed them and put Chyrsler products years behind
> schedule.

Yes the LH cars were and still are great.
I've never kept a car so long as my '95 Concord and was planning to sell
it when it was 10 yrs old, but Chrysler had nothing. Fortunately my
maintenance has been minor in nature and it still performs as new,
including the great handling; still with the original shocks.
My wife loves her '91 Sebring, but I'm just a bit squashed in the front
seats and most of us know of it's 2.7L engine. >:)
The 300M was lovely and I was considering buying a few years old one,
but it has too little ground clearance for me and I'm not into leather
seats.
Now with the fast increasing gas prices my next vehicle objectives have
changed significantly. Only smaller cars now have my interest.

Yesterday as I approached my Concord from the front in a parking lot
something I saw gave me a chuckle. Right beside it was a new 300C in a
nice light grey paint job. I had to chuckle because I never could stand
the 300C styling and seeing one beside my Concord really illustrated how
ugly I feel the 300 looks. Yes some like it, but no one I know. What a
massive truck like grill and squashed window depth!

I could then see how the 300 body was designed. The Chrysler SUV
designers did it up to the windows, then the car designers did it from
there up. However the car designers couldn't use a normal window depth
that would give good vision and balance the vertical look, because the
roof would have been too high, approaching an SUV in height. <:)
So we were blessed with the 300 line, which developed a love hate in
car buyers. Unfortunately for Chrysler the love 300 bunch are a bit
limited and their buying dropped off after a few years.

Unfortunately I had to leave quickly. I wanted to stay a while to see
what (little?) body drove that monster 300.

DeserTBoB

On Wed, 16 May 2007 19:20:07 +0200 (CEST), George Orwell
<Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote:

>Unfortunately the gush of profits
>began to flow only after the Chrysler board, mistakenly convinced that
>Mr. Iacocca had lost his fastball, handed him the proverbial gold watch
>and replaced him with Robert Eaton, freshly imported from General
>Motors. <snip>

Another example of flimsly WSJ "reporting." Eaton was brought on
board LONG before this time by Iacocca to impose a system of financial
controls on what was basically an uncontrolled enterprise wasting
money on decisions made by incompetent middle and upper management. It
was Eaton's job to seek out "finance guys" to implement the new
system, which is exactly what he did at Woodward Avenue for GM. He
was/is NOT a "car guy;" he's a beancounter of the same ilk whose
decisions at GM tanked the company. Iacocca lists naming Eaton as his
successor as "the biggest mistake of my life." Iacocca DID have a car
guy, Bob Lutz, now mired at a collapsing GM.

>Mr. Eaton encountered a paradox: Buyers were flooding the dealerships
>for the spiffy new vehicles developed under Mr. Iacocca's leadership,
>yet by any objective evaluation -- fit and finish, product durability
>and reliability, or plant productivity -- Chrysler was a basket case.
>He assumed that fixing these problems was of higher priority than new
>hits. This was a big mistake but Mr. Eaton turned out to be the
>luckiest man in Motown.<snip>

Didn't happen that way. Eaton took over and immediately cut off all
but "skeleton" funding for the Belvidere Design Center, opining that
Chrysler Group's product line was "good enough" to compete. Remember,
Eaton was NOT a "car guy." At the same time, he slashed operating
costs at the plants through attrition-driven downsizing, cut quality
engineering staff and made other obvious gaffes, and then started
looking for a buyer. THAT's where Schrempp fit into this...he was the
proverbial sucker to Eaton's polished pitch. Eaton took the money and
ran like hell, knowing that hoary K-car based products and a
much-troubled LH platform were ticking time bombs.

>Even mini-hits like the Chrysler 300 http://snipurl.com/Chrysler_300 -
>the big gangsta-car with the narrow windows and powerful hemi engine,
>is proving to have no legs in the market. Worst of all, Chrysler's most
>recent new offerings have been panned by Consumer Reports, the great
>auto market influencer, as both mechanically and cosmetically deficient. <snip>

That's because they're shitty vehicles. The 300 is exactly what the
WSJ writer implies...a "gangta car," only now purchased by blacks in
ghettos, who immediately deck them out with 22" baby buggy wheels and
thumper car stereos, only to have them repossessed a few months later.
The 300 is dead. One only has to look at the depreciation of these
toadmobiles to know. Another zero..the "Charger", as well as the
panned Caliber, which is not selling well at all due to bad design and
quality gaffes.

>Mr. Zetsche, rewarded in January 2006 with the top job at then
>DaimlerChrysler, had already cleaned things up at Chrysler the way a
>financially oriented new owner like Cerberus might do it. Perhaps Mr.
>Feinberg and his colleagues can push even further, persuading the union
>to accept give-ups, but it will have to overcome a natural suspicion at
>Solidarity House, UAW headquarters, of financial hotshots with a Park
>Avenue business address. To the UAW, Cerberus has deep pockets, a
>situation much different from 1979-80, when Chrysler was a stand-alone
>entity and could not survive without union help. <snip>

The UAW will have to tell Snow to shove it. There will be no major
"give-ups." Those days are over, and Labor is tired of fat cat
private equities like Cerberus crying poor mouth when they sit on
billions of cash in some very right wing pockets. When Iacocca
negotiated cuts from UAW in the '80s, he did it from a position of
poverty, and UAW's Doug Fraser knew it. Iacocca told the bargaining
committee that he had "lots of jobs at $17, but I haven't got any at
$20." Fraser knew Iacocca was honest and reliable, and decided to
join in Chrysler's rehabilitation. This isn't the case now. Right
wing fruitcakes like Snow will look at that '80s episode as a sign of
weakness and will try to pin all of Chrysler Group's troubles on
labor, just as GM and Ford have tried to do. Ain't gonna work this
time.

>There's the rub: What even Dieter Zetsche could not accomplish was the
>mysterious feat of generating hit products. And hitmakers are hard to
>find. Cerberus has brought aboard a well-known auto industry ronin,
>Wolfgang Bernhard, as an advisor, but Mr. Bernhard, Chrysler COO from
>2000 to 2004, was on the bridge with Mr. Zetsche not when the company
>was generating hits, but rather when it wasn't. <snip>

Bernhardt (correct spelling; again, the WSJ couldn't report the
temperature correctly) is a major mistake. He's responsible for the
ghettomobile 300 and the now-failing Caliber and "Charger" as well as
other screw-ups. Snow got him on board mainly because Snow doesn't
know crap about the car biz, and Dr. Z probably sold Bernardt to him
to get rid of him from D-B.

>Cerberus, too, is taking on serious downside risk. Chrysler's physical
>assets are essentially worthless because no one else will want them,
>and its marketplace equity is modest at best. The Dodge and Chrysler
>brands have only slight cachet although Jeep remains relatively iconic.
>How long it will remain iconic is questionable. The company has been
>endeavoring to exploit the brand, flooding its product line with
>dubious and slow-selling new variants. <snip>

If the "Dodge Nitro" is any example, they will fail at this. My local
(D)C dealer cannot sell "Nitros" even with $3000 spiffs.

>Unloading 80% of Chrysler is almost certainly a good deal for Daimler.
>Smart and resourceful as the Cerberus principals may be <snip>

ROFLMAO!!! Snow?? Quayle? These are Republipedo Party silver
spooned dumbasses! Snow almost tanked CSX and Quayle...well, all
anyone has to do in research there is listen to some of his "speehes"
and read some of his Bush-like scribblings to know what's going on
there...another born-rich, dyslexic moron á la George Dubya Bush, with
no credentials at all except those bestowed upon him by other
Republipedoes and the WSJ.

The WSJ has no credibility writing about Chrysler at all. All you
have to do is dig up all those anti-loan-guarantee articles they wrote
back in '79, '80 and '81 to see that these Wall St. shills are just
that...shills. A perfect takeover target for a right wing whack job
like Rupert Murdoch, sure, but any business/financial sagacity?
Fahgetddaboutit. Remember, it was the WSJ's editorial statements that
said over and over that Chrysler under Iacocca would fail and the
cadaver should have been divied up among all the banks holding
Chrysler Corporation's debt. WSJ also was guilty of false reporting
even then, repeatedly writing that the Federal loan guarantees were a
"giveaway." Nothing could've been further from the truth. They
pulled the same stunt during the Conrail reorganization, and cheered
when Snow made a severely undervalued bid, championed by "Newt The
Galoot" Gingrich in the House, to get CR's assets for pennies on the
taxpayer's dollar.

DeserTBoB

On Wed, 16 May 2007 19:20:07 +0200 (CEST), George Orwell
<Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote:

>Unfortunately the gush of profits
>began to flow only after the Chrysler board, mistakenly convinced that
>Mr. Iacocca had lost his fastball, handed him the proverbial gold watch
>and replaced him with Robert Eaton, freshly imported from General
>Motors. <snip>

Another example of flimsly WSJ "reporting." Eaton was brought on
board LONG before this time by Iacocca to impose a system of financial
controls on what was basically an uncontrolled enterprise wasting
money on decisions made by incompetent middle and upper management. It
was Eaton's job to seek out "finance guys" to implement the new
system, which is exactly what he did at Woodward Avenue for GM. He
was/is NOT a "car guy;" he's a beancounter of the same ilk whose
decisions at GM tanked the company. Iacocca lists naming Eaton as his
successor as "the biggest mistake of my life." Iacocca DID have a car
guy, Bob Lutz, now mired at a collapsing GM.

>Mr. Eaton encountered a paradox: Buyers were flooding the dealerships
>for the spiffy new vehicles developed under Mr. Iacocca's leadership,
>yet by any objective evaluation -- fit and finish, product durability
>and reliability, or plant productivity -- Chrysler was a basket case.
>He assumed that fixing these problems was of higher priority than new
>hits. This was a big mistake but Mr. Eaton turned out to be the
>luckiest man in Motown.<snip>

Didn't happen that way. Eaton took over and immediately cut off all
but "skeleton" funding for the Belvidere Design Center, opining that
Chrysler Group's product line was "good enough" to compete. Remember,
Eaton was NOT a "car guy." At the same time, he slashed operating
costs at the plants through attrition-driven downsizing, cut quality
engineering staff and made other obvious gaffes, and then started
looking for a buyer. THAT's where Schrempp fit into this...he was the
proverbial sucker to Eaton's polished pitch. Eaton took the money and
ran like hell, knowing that hoary K-car based products and a
much-troubled LH platform were ticking time bombs.

>Even mini-hits like the Chrysler 300 http://snipurl.com/Chrysler_300 -
>the big gangsta-car with the narrow windows and powerful hemi engine,
>is proving to have no legs in the market. Worst of all, Chrysler's most
>recent new offerings have been panned by Consumer Reports, the great
>auto market influencer, as both mechanically and cosmetically deficient. <snip>

That's because they're shitty vehicles. The 300 is exactly what the
WSJ writer implies...a "gangta car," only now purchased by blacks in
ghettos, who immediately deck them out with 22" baby buggy wheels and
thumper car stereos, only to have them repossessed a few months later.
The 300 is dead. One only has to look at the depreciation of these
toadmobiles to know. Another zero..the "Charger", as well as the
panned Caliber, which is not selling well at all due to bad design and
quality gaffes.

>Mr. Zetsche, rewarded in January 2006 with the top job at then
>DaimlerChrysler, had already cleaned things up at Chrysler the way a
>financially oriented new owner like Cerberus might do it. Perhaps Mr.
>Feinberg and his colleagues can push even further, persuading the union
>to accept give-ups, but it will have to overcome a natural suspicion at
>Solidarity House, UAW headquarters, of financial hotshots with a Park
>Avenue business address. To the UAW, Cerberus has deep pockets, a
>situation much different from 1979-80, when Chrysler was a stand-alone
>entity and could not survive without union help. <snip>

The UAW will have to tell Snow to shove it. There will be no major
"give-ups." Those days are over, and Labor is tired of fat cat
private equities like Cerberus crying poor mouth when they sit on
billions of cash in some very right wing pockets. When Iacocca
negotiated cuts from UAW in the '80s, he did it from a position of
poverty, and UAW's Doug Fraser knew it. Iacocca told the bargaining
committee that he had "lots of jobs at $17, but I haven't got any at
$20." Fraser knew Iacocca was honest and reliable, and decided to
join in Chrysler's rehabilitation. This isn't the case now. Right
wing fruitcakes like Snow will look at that '80s episode as a sign of
weakness and will try to pin all of Chrysler Group's troubles on
labor, just as GM and Ford have tried to do. Ain't gonna work this
time.

>There's the rub: What even Dieter Zetsche could not accomplish was the
>mysterious feat of generating hit products. And hitmakers are hard to
>find. Cerberus has brought aboard a well-known auto industry ronin,
>Wolfgang Bernhard, as an advisor, but Mr. Bernhard, Chrysler COO from
>2000 to 2004, was on the bridge with Mr. Zetsche not when the company
>was generating hits, but rather when it wasn't. <snip>

Bernhardt (correct spelling; again, the WSJ couldn't report the
temperature correctly) is a major mistake. He's responsible for the
ghettomobile 300 and the now-failing Caliber and "Charger" as well as
other screw-ups. Snow got him on board mainly because Snow doesn't
know crap about the car biz, and Dr. Z probably sold Bernardt to him
to get rid of him from D-B.

>Cerberus, too, is taking on serious downside risk. Chrysler's physical
>assets are essentially worthless because no one else will want them,
>and its marketplace equity is modest at best. The Dodge and Chrysler
>brands have only slight cachet although Jeep remains relatively iconic.
>How long it will remain iconic is questionable. The company has been
>endeavoring to exploit the brand, flooding its product line with
>dubious and slow-selling new variants. <snip>

If the "Dodge Nitro" is any example, they will fail at this. My local
(D)C dealer cannot sell "Nitros" even with $3000 spiffs.

>Unloading 80% of Chrysler is almost certainly a good deal for Daimler.
>Smart and resourceful as the Cerberus principals may be <snip>

ROFLMAO!!! Snow?? Quayle? These are Republipedo Party silver
spooned dumbasses! Snow almost tanked CSX and Quayle...well, all
anyone has to do in research there is listen to some of his "speehes"
and read some of his Bush-like scribblings to know what's going on
there...another born-rich, dyslexic moron á la George Dubya Bush, with
no credentials at all except those bestowed upon him by other
Republipedoes and the WSJ.

The WSJ has no credibility writing about Chrysler at all. All you
have to do is dig up all those anti-loan-guarantee articles they wrote
back in '79, '80 and '81 to see that these Wall St. shills are just
that...shills. A perfect takeover target for a right wing whack job
like Rupert Murdoch, sure, but any business/financial sagacity?
Fahgetddaboutit. Remember, it was the WSJ's editorial statements that
said over and over that Chrysler under Iacocca would fail and the
cadaver should have been divied up among all the banks holding
Chrysler Corporation's debt. WSJ also was guilty of false reporting
even then, repeatedly writing that the Federal loan guarantees were a
"giveaway." Nothing could've been further from the truth. They
pulled the same stunt during the Conrail reorganization, and cheered
when Snow made a severely undervalued bid, championed by "Newt The
Galoot" Gingrich in the House, to get CR's assets for pennies on the
taxpayer's dollar.

DeserTBoB

On Wed, 16 May 2007 19:20:07 +0200 (CEST), George Orwell
<Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote:

>Unfortunately the gush of profits
>began to flow only after the Chrysler board, mistakenly convinced that
>Mr. Iacocca had lost his fastball, handed him the proverbial gold watch
>and replaced him with Robert Eaton, freshly imported from General
>Motors. <snip>

Another example of flimsly WSJ "reporting." Eaton was brought on
board LONG before this time by Iacocca to impose a system of financial
controls on what was basically an uncontrolled enterprise wasting
money on decisions made by incompetent middle and upper management. It
was Eaton's job to seek out "finance guys" to implement the new
system, which is exactly what he did at Woodward Avenue for GM. He
was/is NOT a "car guy;" he's a beancounter of the same ilk whose
decisions at GM tanked the company. Iacocca lists naming Eaton as his
successor as "the biggest mistake of my life." Iacocca DID have a car
guy, Bob Lutz, now mired at a collapsing GM.

>Mr. Eaton encountered a paradox: Buyers were flooding the dealerships
>for the spiffy new vehicles developed under Mr. Iacocca's leadership,
>yet by any objective evaluation -- fit and finish, product durability
>and reliability, or plant productivity -- Chrysler was a basket case.
>He assumed that fixing these problems was of higher priority than new
>hits. This was a big mistake but Mr. Eaton turned out to be the
>luckiest man in Motown.<snip>

Didn't happen that way. Eaton took over and immediately cut off all
but "skeleton" funding for the Belvidere Design Center, opining that
Chrysler Group's product line was "good enough" to compete. Remember,
Eaton was NOT a "car guy." At the same time, he slashed operating
costs at the plants through attrition-driven downsizing, cut quality
engineering staff and made other obvious gaffes, and then started
looking for a buyer. THAT's where Schrempp fit into this...he was the
proverbial sucker to Eaton's polished pitch. Eaton took the money and
ran like hell, knowing that hoary K-car based products and a
much-troubled LH platform were ticking time bombs.

>Even mini-hits like the Chrysler 300 http://snipurl.com/Chrysler_300 -
>the big gangsta-car with the narrow windows and powerful hemi engine,
>is proving to have no legs in the market. Worst of all, Chrysler's most
>recent new offerings have been panned by Consumer Reports, the great
>auto market influencer, as both mechanically and cosmetically deficient. <snip>

That's because they're shitty vehicles. The 300 is exactly what the
WSJ writer implies...a "gangta car," only now purchased by blacks in
ghettos, who immediately deck them out with 22" baby buggy wheels and
thumper car stereos, only to have them repossessed a few months later.
The 300 is dead. One only has to look at the depreciation of these
toadmobiles to know. Another zero..the "Charger", as well as the
panned Caliber, which is not selling well at all due to bad design and
quality gaffes.

>Mr. Zetsche, rewarded in January 2006 with the top job at then
>DaimlerChrysler, had already cleaned things up at Chrysler the way a
>financially oriented new owner like Cerberus might do it. Perhaps Mr.
>Feinberg and his colleagues can push even further, persuading the union
>to accept give-ups, but it will have to overcome a natural suspicion at
>Solidarity House, UAW headquarters, of financial hotshots with a Park
>Avenue business address. To the UAW, Cerberus has deep pockets, a
>situation much different from 1979-80, when Chrysler was a stand-alone
>entity and could not survive without union help. <snip>

The UAW will have to tell Snow to shove it. There will be no major
"give-ups." Those days are over, and Labor is tired of fat cat
private equities like Cerberus crying poor mouth when they sit on
billions of cash in some very right wing pockets. When Iacocca
negotiated cuts from UAW in the '80s, he did it from a position of
poverty, and UAW's Doug Fraser knew it. Iacocca told the bargaining
committee that he had "lots of jobs at $17, but I haven't got any at
$20." Fraser knew Iacocca was honest and reliable, and decided to
join in Chrysler's rehabilitation. This isn't the case now. Right
wing fruitcakes like Snow will look at that '80s episode as a sign of
weakness and will try to pin all of Chrysler Group's troubles on
labor, just as GM and Ford have tried to do. Ain't gonna work this
time.

>There's the rub: What even Dieter Zetsche could not accomplish was the
>mysterious feat of generating hit products. And hitmakers are hard to
>find. Cerberus has brought aboard a well-known auto industry ronin,
>Wolfgang Bernhard, as an advisor, but Mr. Bernhard, Chrysler COO from
>2000 to 2004, was on the bridge with Mr. Zetsche not when the company
>was generating hits, but rather when it wasn't. <snip>

Bernhardt (correct spelling; again, the WSJ couldn't report the
temperature correctly) is a major mistake. He's responsible for the
ghettomobile 300 and the now-failing Caliber and "Charger" as well as
other screw-ups. Snow got him on board mainly because Snow doesn't
know crap about the car biz, and Dr. Z probably sold Bernardt to him
to get rid of him from D-B.

>Cerberus, too, is taking on serious downside risk. Chrysler's physical
>assets are essentially worthless because no one else will want them,
>and its marketplace equity is modest at best. The Dodge and Chrysler
>brands have only slight cachet although Jeep remains relatively iconic.
>How long it will remain iconic is questionable. The company has been
>endeavoring to exploit the brand, flooding its product line with
>dubious and slow-selling new variants. <snip>

If the "Dodge Nitro" is any example, they will fail at this. My local
(D)C dealer cannot sell "Nitros" even with $3000 spiffs.

>Unloading 80% of Chrysler is almost certainly a good deal for Daimler.
>Smart and resourceful as the Cerberus principals may be <snip>

ROFLMAO!!! Snow?? Quayle? These are Republipedo Party silver
spooned dumbasses! Snow almost tanked CSX and Quayle...well, all
anyone has to do in research there is listen to some of his "speehes"
and read some of his Bush-like scribblings to know what's going on
there...another born-rich, dyslexic moron á la George Dubya Bush, with
no credentials at all except those bestowed upon him by other
Republipedoes and the WSJ.

The WSJ has no credibility writing about Chrysler at all. All you
have to do is dig up all those anti-loan-guarantee articles they wrote
back in '79, '80 and '81 to see that these Wall St. shills are just
that...shills. A perfect takeover target for a right wing whack job
like Rupert Murdoch, sure, but any business/financial sagacity?
Fahgetddaboutit. Remember, it was the WSJ's editorial statements that
said over and over that Chrysler under Iacocca would fail and the
cadaver should have been divied up among all the banks holding
Chrysler Corporation's debt. WSJ also was guilty of false reporting
even then, repeatedly writing that the Federal loan guarantees were a
"giveaway." Nothing could've been further from the truth. They
pulled the same stunt during the Conrail reorganization, and cheered
when Snow made a severely undervalued bid, championed by "Newt The
Galoot" Gingrich in the House, to get CR's assets for pennies on the
taxpayer's dollar.