chrysler officially a foreign car....

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I don't really care for the new vehicles much that Chrysler is offering now with the exception of the Challenger, Viper, and the Dart.
The writing is on the wall now anyway........
 
as long as RAM trucks live on, its fine with me. Everything else can go to hell for all I care.
 
I like many of you will always be a Mopar fan. And I hope for all the real mopar fans fiat will build cars for us. Can't complain too much with The 300, Challenger (costs too much), Ram (ditto), Charger more door but a great car, Jeep, dart (NO thats NOT a Dart). Front wheel drive no thanks. I guess I will have to take a wait and see atitude about our brand. And if Fiat
wants to make money they will have to listen to us, since we are the ones that are going to buy Mopar.....right!!??
 
Welcome to the global economy. Big, international companies are just that. And quite frankly, so long as they don't do any worse that Daimler did (if that's even possible), things should be OK. Will they make new cars we like? Support the older stuff through Mopar Performance, come back to NASCAR? Well, time will tell. If the UAW wanted to be in the car business long term, they wouldn't have sold their shares. If FIAT weren't looking for a plug and play model range to re-establish themselves in the North American market, they'd not have bought them.
 
The precious All American Racing 1970 Plymouth 'Cuda dash that I took out of the car I'm restoring at work, has a giant stamp on the back side that reads Made In Canada.

Plenty of extremely amazing A body cars were made in Mexico, South America and Australia, WHILE your car was being made in the United States.

It doesn't matter!

Do you live in another country? Do you work in another country? So what if you did? Would it be a bad thing?

Ultimately, what would happen if all of the jobs could theoretically go away? People are a locality. If someone lives somewhere, they are going to do something to survive. How well you perform YOUR job and manage YOUR money is how well YOU will live, no matter where that may be or who you work for.
 
ssba said:
I am a Mopar guy to the core. Have been my whole mopar driving life.
It is all I will buy and is all I own. Currently 6 vehicles ranging in age from 1928 to 1986.
I am sure I will ruffle a few feathers out their with my opinion of Chrysler today but I say just kill the name altogether like they did with Desoto or Plymouth. Better than attaching the badge to anything they will make available to us anyway.
I have been nothing but disappointed with their products since the lean burn era. I realize they had to learn a whole new way of building a automobile (copy the Japanese import)to save the company but the k car?
All they had to do to get me to buy a new car was to offer a low to medium price line 2 door coupe V8 manual trans rear wheel drive in whatever new or old name they wanted to call it.
I'm talking about a car a large percentage of their loyal consumers could afford.
It stopped for me with the end of the volare aspen models.
If they had reintroduced the charger in the 2 door as it had always been in the past i would have bought one. 4 doors on a charger. What were they thinking. Deal killer for me.
I was all excited with buzz of the new challenger getting past the prototype. Even seen price estimates that looked good but by the time it got to the dealerships it no longer fit in most buyers price range. What a mistake that seems to be. Thee cars should be all over the roads in a base model without all the expensive options.
. It worked for them with the old road runner, man did they sell a lot of them in 69.
It appears a new Mopar is not gonna happen for me. Its just sad to look back at all the legendary vehicles that I hold at the top of my list as great that Chrysler produced and now they don't have one I would even consider. Haven't since the 80s. Still waiting on them to get it right, if they don't I only have use for their old products.
Click to expand...

i wasn't around then but i have the same outlook.
 
The last Chrysler I bought ( 2002 PT Dream Cruiser ) was a foreign car . I mean the company was taken over by Dimler and the PT was made in Mexico. I sold it and bought a real, make no mistake about it foreign car. A made in Japan 2006 Scion XB.

In 2005 I bought a Chevy Avalanche, American company, built in Mexico so kind of foreign.

The last true American car I bought was my 2004 Chevy SSR, American company, built in the USA.
 
A couple comments from the peanut gallery:

Foreign investment in American companys has been going on for hundreds of years. That is how the US got started. Many of the "American Made" companys we have today are still controlled by offshore investors.

I work for CNH Industrial (Fiat group's truck, farm, and construction group). It was tough to take when Fiat bought CaseIH back in 1999. In the end it was the best thing that could have happened. In 2005 Sergio Marchionne took control and turned us into a very powerful, profitable, company.

He is brand smart and did not "Europeanize" CIH and get rid of the strong American brand. He won't do that with Chrysler either. He didn't buy Chrysler to turn it into Fiat, he bought it to increase the amount of vehicles he could spread development costs over. This is the only way Chrysler (and Fiat) have a chance to survive.

In my role at CNH I have spent some time with Sergio. He is crazy passoniate about Chrysler - It's history and it's future. He grew up in Canada and loves cars. He told me that his favorite Mopar from the sixties is the Hurst Hemi Under Glass. An A body lover as well!

I want to see Mopar continue and be strong in the future. Sergio can pull it off, if anyone can.

Ma Snart
 
I have owned and driven hundreds of domestic and foreign vehicles in my lifetime....but I will always call myself a Mopar guy. In addition to my vintage Mopars I own (and plan to own for many years) a 2010 Ram 1500 pickup and a 2012 Rallye Redline edition Challenger. And they are by far the best vehicles I have ever owned.

The only thing I don't like is the added complexity that all new vehicles have, but that technology enables us to have 400hp and almost 30 mpg, in a vehicle that is comfortable, and handles better than we ever dreamed a vehicle could in the 60s. Besides, everything is more complex than it was in the 60s.

I am not crazy about the bailout business and the way it was handled, nor about Fiat being the buyer, but I have to admit that overall the company and it's products are better for it.

If you read the whole article mentioned by the o/p, there are a lot of interesting observations. I also read several of the comments posted following the article. I found the one posted by John Montgomery had several points that I had not thought about before. It's long but someone here might find it interesting, too.
Dallas

Here is his comment;

Lots of folks want to attack a company that in a government approved partnership has helped bring Chrysler back to life, repaid all government loans, picked up the pieces after Daimler bailed and Cerberus Capital left it for dead. Fiat was the only one at the table willing to even try to help save Chrysler in 2009. Since then, a monumental effort was made on both sides of the partnership to make it work and Chrysler is profitable again.

Now that Fiat is hurting overseas several years later some people want to hammer them saying, playing Monday morning quarterback saying they did not support the rescue plan.

Here are the facts:
1. Fiat rescued Chrysler when NO ONE else would touch it with a 10 ft. pole. It saved 300,000 jobs at Chrysler and second tier suppliers, almost all of which were American jobs based here on our domestic soil.

2. Yes, Fiat got 20% up front, but BOUGHT their way up to 58.5% share and at the same time REPAID every penny of the high interest loans to the government and taxpayers 6 years early. Fiat does no owe taxpayers a single unpaid penny, but GM certainly does!

3. Fiat not only turned around Chrysler but greatly improved the quality of the product; just check up on all the awards, the new Chrysler “cash cow” profits and positive owner surveys for proof.

4. Fiat invested heavily in American soil based assembly plants making Chrysler cars and trucks and the long term job preservation and growth of American jobs. Chrysler EXPORTS Jeeps and other models like the Chrysler 200 (sold as a Lancia) to Europe? These vehicles are made HERE and sent THERE. Chrysler and Fiat are brands that are sold in over 110 countries. Part of the agreement was to make an electric car. Fiat has done it, making the 3000 unit “500E” electric vehicles now sold in California.

5. Fiat also owns 100% of recognized quality brands like New Holland Tractor, Case Backhoes, Kobelco Construction Excavators, FPT Powertrain Technologies, Magnetti Marelli electronic systems, as well as Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Lancia auto brands.
Only the ignorant believe that Fiat makes just small cars.

6. Fiat not only showed a willingness in invest in America but they and independent auto dealers built over 210 Fiat Studios since 2010 to sell the domestic content laden Fiat 500 in North America. The Fiat 500 engine is union made in Dundee, Michigan and received the “International Engine of the Year” award in 2010? The Fiat 500 has tires made by Firestone, brakes made by Bosch in USA and airbags made by Milliken in SC. The Fiat 500 is one of the safest, high mileage non hybrid gas engine vehicles available in America today. Don’t we need high mileage, efficient cars? The Fiat 500 outsells the Mini Cooper entire lineup consistently since the middle of 2011, passing them up less than one year after Fiat came to market here. Fiat invested in America in the middle of a deep recession and successfully brought back a brand to this county when NO other manufacturer has ever been able to do it. By the way, Americans work at these dealerships and US consumers have more choice in a small car.

7. Fiat is the #1 European manufacturer in low CO emission green friendly vehicles and the leader by far in natural gas vehicles. For instance, anyone who lives near London and has to drive into the city, a few cars are exempt from the $20/day impact taxes when entering the London city limits. The Fiat 500 is exempt because of low emissions.

8. Has anyone read Motor Trend magazine lately? The Ram 1500 Pickup Truck (40% of US market is pickups) just got the 2014 Motor Trend Truck of the Year award. This Ram 1500 with the 3.0 liter V-6 Eco-diesel motor (made by Fiat in Italy) and coupled with the new 8 speed transmission tows up to 9200 lbs. and gets a WHOPPING 8 MPG more that Ford or Chevy’s similar truck with diesel engines. Look for Motor Trend’s February 2014 issue, page 76, 77, 78.

9. Sergio Marchionne’s leadership is a great example of what is still possible in America…It can’t be changed in spite of folks trying to bend history or invent facts to support an agenda driven bias or pure ignorance of the facts. Sergio and the partnership should be highly applauded for making Chrysler profitable. Chances are the announcement today will bring more jobs to America, especially since some labor factors in Europe are much more difficult to control. There is actual talk of moving the Fiat HQ here. So, anyone have a problem with investing in America?

10. I invite anyone to visit any Chrysler, Ram, Dodge, Jeep, Fiat, Ferrari, Maserati, New Holland Tractor dealership here in America and take a look at the American made product. Perhaps seeing the results of a real partnership in person will help folks understand this is a very good thing for America and American jobs.
-John Montgomery
 
MOBodyman said:
I have owned and driven hundreds of domestic and foreign vehicles in my lifetime....but I will always call myself a Mopar guy. In addition to my vintage Mopars I own (and plan to own for many years) a 2010 Ram 1500 pickup and a 2012 Rallye Redline edition Challenger. And they are by far the best vehicles I have ever owned.

The only thing I don't like is the added complexity that all new vehicles have, but that technology enables us to have 400hp and almost 30 mpg, in a vehicle that is comfortable, and handles better than we ever dreamed a vehicle could in the 60s. Besides, everything is more complex than it was in the 60s.

I am not crazy about the bailout business and the way it was handled, nor about Fiat being the buyer, but I have to admit that overall the company and it's products are better for it.

If you read the whole article mentioned by the o/p, there are a lot of interesting observations. I also read several of the comments posted following the article. I found the one posted by John Montgomery had several points that I had not thought about before. It's long but someone here might find it interesting, too.
Dallas

Here is his comment;

Lots of folks want to attack a company that in a government approved partnership has helped bring Chrysler back to life, repaid all government loans, picked up the pieces after Daimler bailed and Cerberus Capital left it for dead. Fiat was the only one at the table willing to even try to help save Chrysler in 2009. Since then, a monumental effort was made on both sides of the partnership to make it work and Chrysler is profitable again.

Now that Fiat is hurting overseas several years later some people want to hammer them saying, playing Monday morning quarterback saying they did not support the rescue plan.

Here are the facts:
1. Fiat rescued Chrysler when NO ONE else would touch it with a 10 ft. pole. It saved 300,000 jobs at Chrysler and second tier suppliers, almost all of which were American jobs based here on our domestic soil.

2. Yes, Fiat got 20% up front, but BOUGHT their way up to 58.5% share and at the same time REPAID every penny of the high interest loans to the government and taxpayers 6 years early. Fiat does no owe taxpayers a single unpaid penny, but GM certainly does!

3. Fiat not only turned around Chrysler but greatly improved the quality of the product; just check up on all the awards, the new Chrysler “cash cow” profits and positive owner surveys for proof.

4. Fiat invested heavily in American soil based assembly plants making Chrysler cars and trucks and the long term job preservation and growth of American jobs. Chrysler EXPORTS Jeeps and other models like the Chrysler 200 (sold as a Lancia) to Europe? These vehicles are made HERE and sent THERE. Chrysler and Fiat are brands that are sold in over 110 countries. Part of the agreement was to make an electric car. Fiat has done it, making the 3000 unit “500E” electric vehicles now sold in California.

5. Fiat also owns 100% of recognized quality brands like New Holland Tractor, Case Backhoes, Kobelco Construction Excavators, FPT Powertrain Technologies, Magnetti Marelli electronic systems, as well as Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Lancia auto brands.
Only the ignorant believe that Fiat makes just small cars.

6. Fiat not only showed a willingness in invest in America but they and independent auto dealers built over 210 Fiat Studios since 2010 to sell the domestic content laden Fiat 500 in North America. The Fiat 500 engine is union made in Dundee, Michigan and received the “International Engine of the Year” award in 2010? The Fiat 500 has tires made by Firestone, brakes made by Bosch in USA and airbags made by Milliken in SC. The Fiat 500 is one of the safest, high mileage non hybrid gas engine vehicles available in America today. Don’t we need high mileage, efficient cars? The Fiat 500 outsells the Mini Cooper entire lineup consistently since the middle of 2011, passing them up less than one year after Fiat came to market here. Fiat invested in America in the middle of a deep recession and successfully brought back a brand to this county when NO other manufacturer has ever been able to do it. By the way, Americans work at these dealerships and US consumers have more choice in a small car.

7. Fiat is the #1 European manufacturer in low CO emission green friendly vehicles and the leader by far in natural gas vehicles. For instance, anyone who lives near London and has to drive into the city, a few cars are exempt from the $20/day impact taxes when entering the London city limits. The Fiat 500 is exempt because of low emissions.

8. Has anyone read Motor Trend magazine lately? The Ram 1500 Pickup Truck (40% of US market is pickups) just got the 2014 Motor Trend Truck of the Year award. This Ram 1500 with the 3.0 liter V-6 Eco-diesel motor (made by Fiat in Italy) and coupled with the new 8 speed transmission tows up to 9200 lbs. and gets a WHOPPING 8 MPG more that Ford or Chevy’s similar truck with diesel engines. Look for Motor Trend’s February 2014 issue, page 76, 77, 78.

9. Sergio Marchionne’s leadership is a great example of what is still possible in America…It can’t be changed in spite of folks trying to bend history or invent facts to support an agenda driven bias or pure ignorance of the facts. Sergio and the partnership should be highly applauded for making Chrysler profitable. Chances are the announcement today will bring more jobs to America, especially since some labor factors in Europe are much more difficult to control. There is actual talk of moving the Fiat HQ here. So, anyone have a problem with investing in America?

10. I invite anyone to visit any Chrysler, Ram, Dodge, Jeep, Fiat, Ferrari, Maserati, New Holland Tractor dealership here in America and take a look at the American made product. Perhaps seeing the results of a real partnership in person will help folks understand this is a very good thing for America and American jobs.
-John Montgomery
Click to expand...

I say amen to this, and to Fiats efforts to work in a very complex, and often downright hostile environment that is the American workplace!! Great post Mo!! Geof
 
ok so then whats the difference if you buy an american made toyota for example? i see many here bash the american made toyota, honda, kia...etc.. because the profits go overseas... never mind that all those companies employ thousands here in america also. so where are the profits for chrysler going now?

i just get a kick out of the assclowns that bash foreign cars because they are foreign owned even though many are designed and built here, yet love them some chrysler even though from 98-08 they were foreign (german) and now they are foreign yet again being owned by the italians. amazing the double standard (or hypocrisy) there is when it comes to the old pentastar.. :)
 
abodyjoe said:
ok so then whats the difference if you buy an american made toyota for example? i see many here bash the american made toyota, honda, kia...etc.. because the profits go overseas... never mind that all those companies employ thousands here in america also. so where are the profits for chrysler going now?

i just get a kick out of the assclowns that bash foreign cars because they are foreign owned even though many are designed and built here, yet love them some chrysler even though from 98-08 they were foreign (german) and now they are foreign yet again being owned by the italians. amazing the double standard (or hypocrisy) there is when it comes to the old pentastar.. :)
Click to expand...

I'm not bashing any brand of cars at all. I stated clearly that, to me, at least, the loss of brand to a foreign entity is the problem.
The "thousands of American jobs" that the Foreign manufactures replaced the old UAW jobs with pay less, have fewer benefits. They weren't an equal trade off, so to speak.

When we lost the automobile industry to Asia, we lost high paying jobs, we lost the profit that GM, Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep would reinvest on American soil, we lost the design studios and those workers and salaries, and the execs, and their salaries and the personal spending that they did here. We also lost approximately 1000 other cottage industry businesses that made parts, and castings, and paints, and plastic, and much of the machinery used here in the "domestic plants" for foreign manufactures. We lost to the design teams for those machines, and we lost the raw materials, as most of the steel now used to build cars here in the US for ALL manufacturers now comes from China.

How many jobs do you think were saved by domestic assembly plants, vs. the number of jobs lost to off shore industries? Suffice to say that we didn't come out of that trade off on the plus side.

Yes, I agree with you that the domestic assembly plants owned by the foreign car makers does employ thousands of Americans. However, they did not replace all the auto industry jobs lost, here, and they replaced none of the auto industries supply and support industry jobs that were never moved to America, and probably never will be.

Also, keep in mind that while we did get the assembly plants, 7 out of 10 of the manufacturing plants are still off shore.
 
And now Chrysler is one of those foreign cars.

For the record I wasn't pointing you or anyone else out. It's posts I've seen here and other forums over the years I was referring to.
 
abodyjoe said:
And now Chrysler is one of those foreign cars.
Click to expand...

Not yet. As long as they are still building vehicles that were designed by Chrysler. However, in my opinion, they will eventually become a foreign brand as the Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep vehicles eventually move to European platforms, which will happen, simply due to costs, if for no other reason.

When FIAT completes the purchase of the rest of the stock, it will become a Foreign owned corporation, building American (for the most part) designed vehicles. At least for a while, anyway.
After that, who knows...

It could be completely absorbed by Fiat, it could linger as a Euro-American entity, or it could continue to exist with an American name and European designed vehicles. The Dart II, and the designs for the new Avenger are good examples of the type of stuff that we might be able to expect from them. I hooe not.
 
owned by a foreign company means foreign car.. you can try to justify it to yourself anyway you want but in the end a chrysler is no more an american car then a kia now.. :)
 
ssba said:
I am a Mopar guy to the core. Have been my whole mopar driving life.
It is all I will buy and is all I own. Currently 6 vehicles ranging in age from 1928 to 1986.
I am sure I will ruffle a few feathers out their with my opinion of Chrysler today but I say just kill the name altogether like they did with Desoto or Plymouth. Better than attaching the badge to anything they will make available to us anyway.
I have been nothing but disappointed with their products since the lean burn era. I realize they had to learn a whole new way of building a automobile (copy the Japanese import)to save the company but the k car?
All they had to do to get me to buy a new car was to offer a low to medium price line 2 door coupe V8 manual trans rear wheel drive in whatever new or old name they wanted to call it.
I'm talking about a car a large percentage of their loyal consumers could afford.
It stopped for me with the end of the volare aspen models.
If they had reintroduced the charger in the 2 door as it had always been in the past i would have bought one. 4 doors on a charger. What were they thinking. Deal killer for me.
I was all excited with buzz of the new challenger getting past the prototype. Even seen price estimates that looked good but by the time it got to the dealerships it no longer fit in most buyers price range. What a mistake that seems to be. Thee cars should be all over the roads in a base model without all the expensive options.
. It worked for them with the old road runner, man did they sell a lot of them in 69.
It appears a new Mopar is not gonna happen for me. Its just sad to look back at all the legendary vehicles that I hold at the top of my list as great that Chrysler produced and now they don't have one I would even consider. Haven't since the 80s. Still waiting on them to get it right, if they don't I only have use for their old products.
Click to expand...

Dude...take off the blinders and DRIVE one! The only word that can describe the new Charger R/T (or 300C) is WOW! It's a legit 150MPH rocketship, equally at home on a highway, a winding 2-lane, a 1/4 mile, or at Watkins Glen or Sears Point. Even the base Charger/300 is impressive: 300HP and 30MPG (from a full-size car...these things are C-body big) is nothing to sneeze at!
 
64DartGTinAZ said:
I'm pretty sure that four or five of the seven US branded new cars I've purchased since 1986 were built in Canada (Buick, Chevrolet, Chrysler and Dodge), so even though I've tried to 'buy American', I've been buying North American (and I mean no disrespect to our neighbor Canada). Same for the last few my folks bought.

I don't know about the Ford Tempo, and the Geo Prizm (GM) was built in Fremont, CA (built on the same line as Toyota Corollas back then). I haven't looked at my '13 Charger...will have to check.
Click to expand...

Don't bother: like my 2007 Magnum and all US-market LX/LC cars, it was built in the old AMC plant in Brampton, Ontario.
 
abodyjoe said:
owned by a foreign company means foreign car.. you can try to justify it to yourself anyway you want but in the end a chrysler is no more an american car then a kia now.. :)
Click to expand...

Hasn't been in a while, dude. Chrysler Corporation died in 1998.
 
abodyjoe said:
i just get a kick out of the assclowns that bash foreign cars because they are foreign owned even though many are designed and built here, yet love them some chrysler even though from 98-08 they were foreign (german) and now they are foreign yet again being owned by the italians. amazing the double standard (or hypocrisy) there is when it comes to the old pentastar.. :)
Click to expand...

There is a parking lot for a Union building out here, with a sign that says "Domestic Car Parking Only! All Others Will Be Towed"

Does that mean I can't park my mom's PT Cruiser in it?

Or how about an AAR 'Cuda with that factory Canadian dash that the vin is attached to? Are we talking about a percentage base? Can I park 86% of the 'Cuda in the lot and the rest over the sidewalk or street? Or is it a totality? Can I park the American parts of the car in the lot, as long as the dash isn't over it? What if the money used to pay for the American car was made by selling Chinese imported goods at a retail outlet, like if I worked at Wal-Mart?

Hair splitting is fun!
 
it is true, greedy stockholders sold out Chrysler in 1998. They thought the German technology would be Incorporated into the brand. Germans simply pillaged the brand for it's value, took the cash reserves, and bailed when it served their purposes. However, they held on to a share of the truck brand, as Cummins made a lot of money for them. To this day a share of every sale goes to Daimler. On the good side, I owned a 2007 3500, and a 2007 patriot. They were good vehicles, but my 2012 3500 and 13' Patriot are far superior in quality and workmanship, which is after Fiat took over. Fiat actually listened to their American employees, Instead of seeing them as a competitor. Daimler would never have agreed to a challenger. Yes it sucks that a foreign company owns a portion of the company. what sucks worse is Obama giving the rest to the Unions, and pretty much looted the shareholders. I think Obama privately co-signed for the Fiat Investment, as Fiat was pretty much forced to purchase Chrysler. Who would loan Fiat any money? There is no way to go back now, but My memories with Mopars built from 1974 thru 1986 weren't happy ones. they were poor in quality, which was good for me because I got paid to repair them, but bad for me because I also owned and drove them. My best running car was a 1969 340 dart as my daily driver, until it became a collectible. I still have that car, and that is a real mopar! If my 3500 becomes bigger than I need, than I foresee a 5.0 Cummins Nissan, as bad as that sounds .However, Cummins dictates the sturdiness of the truck design, not the Brand it goes in.Coincidently, that 5.0 was supposed to go to dodge, but Daimler stopped it back in 06 or so.
 
There is no such thing as an American car. I've have bought parts from dealers. GM parts from China. Ford from France. It doesn't matter anymore. Its called global economy. Americans want to make $50 an hour but pay $1 for products. You want something just buy it. It doesn't matter where its made or where the profits go. We are a nation of spoiled brats. Majority of people couldn't handle 3rd world problems. Be thankful that you can have a car buy clothes or go to the doctors. If I could afford a new Mopar I would. I could care less where or who made it.
 
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