Posted on 10/11/2008 3:48:25 AM PDT by decimon
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Leading US automakers General Motors and Chrysler are engaged in preliminary talks that may result in their merger, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported on their websites.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Hemi Camaro? LS9 Challenger? I am so confused.
Dang, I better get a move on. I’ve been planning to check under the couch cusions for enough pocket change to buy GM myself, but it looks like someone might beat me to it.
There’s been a lot of activity at the Chrysler proving ground lately. The employee parking lots have been filled to overflowing the last couple of times I’ve been by there.
Jeep Malibu. Corvette K-Car.
If GM gets within a mile of Chrysler I will never buy a Chevy again.
And we thought we won WWII. Our love affair with everything Asian is putting the last of the once mighty American industrial machine in it’s grave. But who cares. We still have Hollywood and no one can do that better than us.
With their engines? No way! ;-)
I'm among those to believe that winning was, in a sense, losing. In the absence of former competition we Americans became complacent. Fat, happy and arrogant in the belief that all good comes to he who fakes it. I think we are now just coming to grips with the reality of global competition.
It may come down to a choice between consolidation of the big 3 or loss of our domestic auto industry - and what an economic and national security disaster that would be.
I'd hate to see it too... I can go to my Ford dealer now and buy a car that I can drive a decade or more trouble free - I don't want my Ford contaminated with GM or Chrysler DNA, but if it comes down to either that, or having no domestic choice when I buy my next car, I'll reluctantly accept it.
The automobile industry in this country is not going to survive without downsizing and getting rid of as many union employees as they can. This is inevitable. It will be GM-Chrysler first. Adding Ford will come later. Sometime later it will simply be named U.S. Motors and the CEO of U.S. Motors will be chosen by the Secretary of the Treasury or by Barney Frank. At the same time, employment levels will slowly drop as more and more manufacturing is moved to China. The Europeans will follow a similar path to China. Probably the Japanese as well.
I can't wait to buy my first Chevrolodge.
Exactly my point. US industry had finally come around with products that are in many cases at par with its foreign competitors but I’m afraid a little to late to ever regain its former glory. It’s easy to lose a customer but very difficult to regain their trust. A sad testimony to our complacency.
Gm’s overseas operations are whats propping up the corporation. They own the Chinese and Indian markets and are at par in sales with the Asians in South America. I’ve even heard that GM has a large engineering technical center in India that will someday be larger than the one in Detroit. It’s ironic that the big three move their production overseas to be close to their global markets and the Japanese/Koreans are moving many of their production facilities here to be close to their most profitable markets. I think your right, though, in that the Chinese will eventually own even these markets. I’m not sure that’s a world I want to see.
” Our love affair with everything Asian is putting the last of the once mighty American industrial machine in it’s grave “
Don’t blame the Asians . We dug our own grave . Long live the Pinto and Vega !
And the 81 Caddy 4-6-8 V-8.
shouldn't that be 3-miss-7 v8 lol
I blame the unions. I ordered an 09 Jeep Patriot a few weeks ago
here is the REAL story.
CNBC reporters said they had heard about the talks FOR OVER A MONTH BUT DID NOT REPORT IT.
So some investors had INSIDE INFROMATION ABOUT GM but did not diseminate the information.
Until GM does something about their pension and healthcare obligations they will always have problems.
/s
I'd rather have a Radio Flyer Wagon for transportation than a FORD.
FORD is an acronym that stands for Fix Or Replace Daily. All of the Ford’s that I have ever owned have been lemons.
Chrysler is not Chrysler but an investment group with a problem on it’s hands. I don’t think GM is so stupid as to actually do a deal with them unless price is very very cheap.
They might listen out of courtesy and even lead them on but actually do nothing.
why would ANY car maker place ANY factory in Michigan?
That I wouldn't know about. All I do know is I've had good *luck* with cars from Chrysler Corp. (Chrysler, Dodge & Jeep) and GM (had everything but a Pontiac).
But the two Fords I've had sucked. No, make that 'worse than sucked'. One was a Pinto - 'nuff said there. The other, a new '72 Torino, literally fell apart - pieces fell OFF - at 12,300 miles. Odd that the warranty was only for 12,000 miles. /s
And the money will come from where?
Crysler is owned by Cerebus Capital Management, who also owns 50% of GMAC. GM owns the other half of GMAC. GMAC is severly hurting right now from their subprime loans and auto loans, and Crysler is hurting as well, which makes this especially painful to Cerebus. I guess they need to unload Crysler.
The only way these companies can survive, IMO, is through massive government assistance, courtesy of the taxpayer. I don't want to keep these corpses on life support and I don't want my tax dollars going into the pockets of union clock watchers. Not that I have any say in the matter.
What really sucks is that they make pretty decent cars nowadays, but their business models are so broken that they can't even sniff a profit.
A merger needn't involve a payout.
The caddie 4-6-8 was a sound concept. It is used with the 5.3 chevy v-8. They just could not make it happen in ‘81.
There are very few true “mergers”. What happens is a takeover called a merger to placate shareholders and employees. And one company is buying the other no matter what it’s called. GM is going to the Fed for a loan, but has money for this?
One report said that GM would get Chrysler’s automotive division in return for GM’s remaining share of GMAC.
Possible, but it seems an odd transaction as GM would just start a new finance arm.
Never been much of a Chrysler fan till 2000 and we using them as co vehicles. Great cars and most of the reps ended up buy them after the lease was up.
One of my last jobs at Chrysler was working at the proving grounds down in Chelsea. I didn’t know until then you could have so much fun abusing motor vehicles. On a more sober note, if one or more of the big three go belly up this country will lose a huge chunk of it’s manufacturing capacity. There are literally thousands of small “mom and pop” shops supplying these plants. Trickle down economics and all. These plants close, and a lot of others go with them. Experienced it first hand how a GM plant closure can turn a city of 100,000 into a ghost town overnight.
My neighbor retired from the proving ground a couple of years ago.
As far as secondary manufacturing goes, the small factories moved out of Jackson over the last 20 years and it will only get worse if one of the big 3 goes down.
Ford's the name of the founder of the company - one of the greatest industrialists of all time.
The only Ford I've owned that had a recurring problem was my Pinto, and that problem was the POS foreign-made transmission.
All the Fords I've owned (7 Fords & 1 Lincoln) have been great cars.
Globalization is producing some weird results. BASF hiring more American Chemists and Chemical facilities in America than Germany. Ford selling better than Europe.
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