Given the dominating coverage focus on Chrysler’s pre-bankruptcy, and the trials of some senior creditors, as well as a great deal of obfuscation or outright willful ignorance, it is easy to forget that “Chrysler sails out of bankruptcy” isn’t a slam dunk- even if we could expect Fiat’s total, drooling subservience, which we cannot. Chrysler still has to actually, you know, sell automobiles. And they are going to have to totally rebuild a dealer network that the bankruptcy filing was designed to crush. As you might imagine, rosy projections about sales have not come to pass.
Chrysler’s car dealership network is on the verge of collapse, a U.S. bankruptcy court heard on Monday, as hundreds of dealerships have closed their doors this year and uncertainty about the company’s future is driving consumers away.
“A lot of these guys right now are just trying to survive,” James Arrigo, the co-chairman of Chrysler’s National Dealer Counsel said of the company’s dealers at a hearing on Monday in U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan.
Arrigo, who is one of the company’s top-ten selling dealers, according to court papers, says that even he has seen a drop off of about 50 percent in car sales this year.
Of course, the deterioration of the dealership network is also one of the prime reasons, the argument goes, that Chrysler’s sale must be flashed through the courts as quickly as possible, so it is not surprising that we would start to hear a lot about the dire situation Chrysler is in. (Of course, not a few days ago everything was going to be just fine, but now that a speedy sale is all the rage, things are exploding and spilling toxic gas into a nearby wildlife preserve causing unmarried cats and dogs to room together and otherwise filling the world with unneeded chaos).
Chrysler bankruptcy has dealers on “razor’s edge” [Reuters]
Here’s a realistic commentary on the technologically sophisticated Fiat, and what it brings to the table…
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/-vauxhalls-not-quite-rusty-enough%2c-says-fiat-200905051740/
How did the biz press forget that Fiats are basically one step above Yugos?
“Judge OKs Chrysler financing over lenders’ protest”
http://www.heraldonline.com/120/story/1315253.html
cute article, #1, but FIAT is making some outstanding vehicles nowadays. The Punto and the new Cinquecento are excellent. Small platforms (and just maybe a FWD transmission that doesn’t blow syphilitic goats) is exactly what could keep Chryler alive.
Aside from the UAW, the biggest millstone around the necks of US automakers has been the agency system — a real relic of horse drawn buggy days.
@3 Yeah, but Italians don’t drive automatics, so how would FIAT know how to design a good transmission for Americans.
@ 4 hah! that’s a good point — well, the krauts and japs sure figured it out.
Back in the day the old FIAT Spider was available with an automatic — it was a Turbohydramatic 250 from GM — same tranny as used in the Chevette! Was actually not a bad unit.
@4
They get automatic transmission know how from Ferrari and they make best automatic transmissions (They change gears in least amount of time). Fiat makes great cars now. Look at their Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Ferrari range.
They never mention Alfa Romeo. If I was going to buy a car of questionable running ability, I’d at least look at the 159 sportwagon. And if Jaguar can learn to make dependable but stylish and overpriced cars, Alfa can too.
@8:
this is not the car I ordered. I distinctly ordered the Antartic Blue Super Sports Wagon with C.B. and optional rally fun pack
I wonder how that “King of Cars” guy is doing. If I remember correctly he was selling Dodge cars.
@6
Those are sequential manual transmissions rather than true “automatics”
@11 the paddle shift/manumatic tx are closer to automatic than manual as far as technology goes
Buyers staying away from Chrysler are not just worried about whether it survives. There is a not-immaterial number of us who are so disgustd with the whole spectacle (sucking off the public teat) that we will never buy a Chrysler (or GM for that matter) again for moral reasons.
@14. Only lefties boycott things for moral reasons. And they never buy American cars anyway, for snobbish reasons.
@13
I feel you, however, if I can snag a very low mileage Jeep SRT8 or new(ish) Escalade for pennies on the dollar, I might just suck it up and buy “American.”
WHITE HOUSE INTERFERENCE
Chrysler and its “rogue” debt holders shouldn’t give in to the Administration’s bully pulpit.
http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2009/05/dilettantes-at-chrysler-gate.html