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Auto legend Sergio Marchionne, the charismatic executive who turned Fiat and Chrysler around before combining the companies as a profitable business, died Wednesday. He was 66. "Unfortunately, what we feared has come to pass. Sergio Marchionne, man and friend, is gone," John Elkann, a member of Fiat's founding Agnelli family, said in a statement.

In a statement Saturday, he said, "I am profoundly saddened to learn of Sergio’s state of health. It is a situation that was unthinkable until a few hours ago, and one that leaves us all with a real sense of injustice. ..At his side, the reports said, were his two sons and his partner of several years, Manuela Battezzato, who works in FCA communications.

Sergio Marchionne, longtime CEO and chief for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, stepped down Saturday due to serious complications after surgery, the company announced. Mike Manley, head of Jeep and Ram brands, replaced him. John Elkann, grandson of Gianni Agnelli and chairman of the company that controls FCA, said his family was shocked by Marchionne's failing health. "I am profoundly saddened to learn of Sergio’s state of health. It is a situation that was unthinkable until a few hours ago, and one that leaves us all with a real sense of injustice," Elkann said in a statement. Elkann will fill Marchionne's chairman...

The number of Fiat Chrysler factory workers in North America will increase as the company reduces production of passenger cars and shifts toward trucks and SUVs, the company’s chief executive said Tuesday. […] He (Sergio Marchionne) said new Ram pickup truck will come out at the beginning of 2018. It will be built at two U.S. factories in suburban Detroit, so it won’t cost the company any production of the current model. A factory in Sterling Heights, Michigan, that now makes the Chrysler 200 sedan will be retooled to make pickups, he said. The company also plans to build a...

The United Auto Workers union will accelerate its bargaining efforts with Fiat Chrysler Automobile in the hopes of hammering out a template for a new labor contract the other two Detroit auto makers will match. The choice of Fiat Chrysler's FCA US unit as the target company for shaping the new contract, disclosed by the union on Sunday, kicks off an intense negotiating period expected in part to focus on a two-tier wage system that has financially benefited auto makers but rankled workers. The UAW's current contract with Fiat Chrysler, General Motors and Ford Motor expires on Monday, but labor...

Someone has to step up once the Prancing Horse is spun off.Sergio Marchionne has done a great job reviving Chrysler, Fiat and with the FCA group as a whole, but if his latest gambit works he will go down as legend in the auto industry. Last year we reported that FCA was planning to spin off Ferrari to grab some cash. The majority of the company (80 percent) would be owned by FCA shareholders so the company would still wield a lot of power over Ferrari. That being said Marchionne needs a new brand to fill the Prancing Horse’s shoes,...

Chrysler dealers from around the U.S. seem revved up by the purchase of the U.S. carmaker by Italy’s Fiat SpA. […] “I think it’s well deserved,” said Pamela Burger of Carl Burger Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram World in the San Diego suburb of La Mesa, Calif. “They picked us up out of bankruptcy when we couldn’t even be bought, and have grown us over five years. … They helped us grow instead of stripping us of money and assets.” And, she said, “The quality gets better and better.” Fiat has been running Chrysler since 2009 and owned nearly 60 percent...