Posted on 01/07/2009 5:56:38 PM PST by Flavius
DETROIT (AP) -- Even by the standards of battered automakers, Chrysler is in dire shape. Its sales in December were down a stunning 53 percent, far worse than Ford or General Motors, and analysts say it probably won't survive the year as an independent company -- despite $4 billion in government loans and the possibility of more.
Things were so bad last year that a single Toyota model, the Camry/Solara midsize car, outsold the entire fleet of Chrysler LLC's passenger cars.
(Excerpt) Read more at biz.yahoo.com ...
Yes.. So is GM and Ford..
Too bad because I love my Jeep.
These retirement companies are not sustainable. They need to shed the load. Retirement companies that sell cars on the side is not a very good business plan.
Can you imagine going into a VC shop and pitching that?
The Jeep brand will always survive. That will be the only thing of value to be sold off in bankruptcy court. I’m a Dodge/Jeep buyer and saying this hurts but I think Chrysler and Dodge will go the way of Plymouth, Studebaker, AMC, Oldsmobile and others.
They should have let Chrysler die back in 1980.
Benz really put a knife in the heart (or back) of Chrysler....I’m with you...Mopar or no car.
Jeep is the only thing that will survive. May as well shutter the doors now.
How will we get along without the PT Cruiser and the Charger? /s
But as time has moved forward, the unsustainability of the union demands has become clear. The US auto companies cannot build cheap cars because they cannot load enough overhead into the cost of cheap. It's one reason they have lost the low end market to the imports. Amongst others.
Two words: UNIONS KILL!
I'm having a great time with my Chrysler 300C SRT8, myself.
425 horsepower, 5 speed automatic, fully independent suspension with Bilstein shocks and Brembo brakes factory standard - heck, it's a full size American sedan, with muscle in the American tradition.
It runs 0-60 in 4.7 seconds, and will do 168 miles per hour, if you've got the cojones and the place to do it. The electronic widgets are amazing, and the seats, with their "lateral support", are much more comfortable for long trips than I would have believed.
Most fun car I ever owned, by far. If Chrysler goes belly up, it should be a valuable "collector car" in a few yearsn as well.
In a word, yes. They have no lineup. Sell off Jeep and shutter the thing.
The rest of Chrysler? Maybe if they shrink some more real fast.
that’s funny!
mercedes benz bought chrysler and juiced it,
and then the geniuses at cerberus group bought it thinking that they’d make a fast buck.
cerberus also bought mervyn’s which closed recently.
Park it now.
The Chrysler lineup demonstrates the problem that the not os big 3 have in the US and foreign car market.
The higher end Chrysler products are nice cars. The 300 is one of the best looking, best driving, best feeling cars on the road. It’s the kind of car that makes you feel like a king driving it. But, as nice as it is, when I needed a new car this year, a 300 doesn’t fit into my finances or my intended use, so I had to aim lower-and by doing so I found that the lower tier of Chrysler cars are miserable failures. Detroit punishes you for having the gall to want a small car-the interiors, the driving feel, the comfort are all well under the equivialent of the “import” cars. A 2005 Focus was a much nicer car than a 2008 Caliber, and a Focus is nothing special.
And another thing-who’s stupid idea was it to release the Charger as a 4 door? Doh! They should have skipped that and gone straight to the Challenger. Other than the 300 and the Challenger and Jeep, which they have attempted to screw up via the Compass and Patriot, what is at all remarkable about Chrysler?
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