Free Republic

You had to be there to remember – and to understand – so here’s a refresher. In 1964, group of young Pontiac engineers created the GTO by pairing an expensive big-car’s engine with an inexpensive medium-sized car – thereby creating the first mass-market muscle car. Which was mass-market because it wasn’t just about muscle. That had been done before, by Chrysler (letter series cars) and Oldsmobile, too. What made the GTO different – and dangerous, in the view of a certain kind of killjoy – was that it was cheap. Or at least, affordable. You didn’t have to be a...

Adient manufacturing plant in Missouri has banned American Flag face masks. According to this employee, the company makes car seats for Ford Motors.

SAN LEANDRO (CBS SF) - Police have made five arrests and recovered 59 vehicles, mostly high-priced Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcats, that were stolen during a night of looting following an outbreak of violence associated with anger over the death of George Floyd. As he watched looters ransack a Nike outlet across the street, the owner of the San Leandro Chrysler/Dodge dealership ordered his employees to secure the building and car lot the best they could and then get to a safer location. The looters storm into the dealership, smashing windows and gaining access to a lock box containing keys to...

The Dodge Grand Caravan’s journey is finally ending this spring. The minivan is scheduled to end production on May 22, the automaker has confirmed. The Caravan was introduced alongside the Plymouth Voyager in 1984 as a “garageable” van that helped kick off the minivan craze that continued through the 1990s, until family car buyers started making the shift to SUVs. The stretched Grand Caravan was added to the lineup in 1987 and eventually became the only version offered. The Caravan lived through five generations, with the current one dating back to 2008. U.S. sales topped 300,000 in 1996 and 1997,...

DETROIT – Fiat Chrysler's Ram pickup unseated General Motors' Chevrolet Silverado as the second-best selling vehicle in the U.S. during the first nine months of the year. With a United Auto Workers strike underway that has shut down GM's pickup production, the Ram likely will beat the Silverado for the full year for the first time, according to auto sales experts. At the end of September, the Ram had a lead of nearly 52,000 vehicles, according to company sales figures released Wednesday. So far this year, U.S. buyers snapped up 461,115 Rams, an increase of 23% over the same time...

Marie Davis wants better medical insurance coverage. Jimmie Pleasant has been out of work for six months. Both are among the thousands of people who are looking for jobs with Fiat Chrysler under a city program that gives Detroit’s residents first crack at the application process. It’s part of a $108 million land development deal between an automaker that’s building a massive new plant and a city where the unemployment rate is more than twice the national average. Detroit officials hope the deal with Fiat Chrysler will mean residents have a better shot at good-paying jobs with the automaker, although...

For many buyers whose top priority is a car that won’t break down, the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study is gospel. J.D. Power just released the results of its 2019 Initial Quality Study, and the Korean trio of Genesis, Kia, and Hyundai took the top three spots. Luxury brand Genesis ranked highest, followed by sibling brands Kia and Hyundai. It’s a big win for Genesis which, as a relative newcomer to the luxury segment, needs to build credibility with buyers. The high scores achieved by Kia and Hyundai show that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to...

BlueLineClassics Published on Apr 30, 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yYg1pKt7kM

Dodge has summoned another monster from the underworld. The latest is a new 1,000 hp engine called the “Hellephant” that’s based on the brand’s Hellcat supercharged V8 and will be offered as a crate motor for custom car builders next year. Its name is a tip of the hat to the original “Elephant” 426 Hemi V8 from the 1960s, and the new engine features an aluminum block with a bigger bore and stroke than the 376 cubic-inch Hellcat’s that brings it up to a historically appropriate 426 cubic-inches. The engine mixes parts from the engines found in the Dodge Challenger...

Sometimes a bird in the hand will get you two in the bush. And by “bush” I mean garage. An Ebay seller is currently auctioning a pair of 1970 Plymouth Superbirds that were stored for over 30 years until he purchased them after a chance meeting last month. He’d just paid $187,000 for another one of the iconic muscle cars at a car auction in Maine when someone sidled up to him and told him about his secret stash. Within days, he’d bought the pair for an undisclosed amount and dug them out of the cluttered, dusty garage they’d been...

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.

... pregame protesters rallied against racism and a television ad infuriated many viewers by invoking the voice of Martin Luther King Jr. to sell pickup trucks.... ....The biggest blowback, however, was reserved for Dodge. To many commentators, the advertisement seemed to co-opt the martyred civil rights icon in the service of crass commercialism and unblinking patriotism. King loudly opposed the Vietnam War and argued for military expenditures to be redirected to domestic spending — particularly to serve....

The chief executive of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said his company could quickly move production of Ram heavy-duty pickup trucks to Michigan from Mexico if President Donald J. Trump's "America First" economic plan provides enough incentives. "Properly motivated, it could be executed very quickly by FCA," possibly by 2019 or 2020, Sergio Marchionne told analysts during a conference call to discuss the company's record financial results for 2016. Automakers have been under pressure from the new Trump Administration to build more of their cars in the United States as part of the president's agenda to create more American jobs. But the...

Fiat Chrysler will make Ram trucks in Michigan instead of Mexico beginning in 2020, and the company says this will mean 2,500 extra jobs at the plant in Warren, Detroit’s largest suburb. While this isn’t the first bit of good economic news in the wake of big corporate tax cuts Republicans just passed, it’s the one that cheers us the most, because it best reflects the way lower corporate taxes work. The key is not bigger profits but increased competitiveness. *snip* More companies will set up more business in the U.S., because it’s now easier to compete by doing so....

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is feeling good about tax reform. So good that it says it's moving some of its truck production from Mexico to Michigan. The automaker announced Thursday that it will spend more than $1 billion to revamp its Warren Truck Assembly Plant, which will start making the Ram heavy-duty truck in 2020. The truck is currently made in Saltillo, Mexico. Fiat Chrysler said it will add 2,500 jobs in Michigan to support the move. The company also said it's giving one-time $2,000 bonuses to 60,000 U.S. workers. "It is only proper that our employees share in the savings...

(Reuters) - Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV FCH.MI (FCAU.N) said on Thursday it would invest more than $1 billion in its Michigan plant and add 2,500 jobs as it benefits from the overhaul of the U.S. tax code. The company said it would spend the money to modernize the Warren Truck Assembly Plant in Michigan to produce its Ram Heavy Duty trucks. The company will relocate the truck’s production from its current location in Saltillo, Mexico, to the Michigan plant in 202O. The car maker also said it would make a special bonus payment of $2,000 to about 60,000 FCA hourly...

How fast? Try an elapsed time of 9.65 seconds at 140 mph. Zero to 60 mph happens in a mere 2.3 seconds. The Demon is also the first production car to achieve a front-wheel lift. It’s 840-hp of awesomeness.

Former FBI director James Comey is formally refusing to answer questions submitted to him by a bipartisan group of senators, suggesting he no longer must do so as a private citizen. Comey sent an email from his private account last week rebuffing the seven questions that had been submitted to him by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley and the committee’s ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein after Comey’s final testimony as FBI director to the panel last month. Comey was fired by President Donald Trump shortly after his appearance. Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., joined in the request...

Nearly a third of retirees are playing chicken with one of the steepest tax penalties out there — and they are running out of time. IRS rules on so-called required minimum distributions generally kick in once you reach age 70½. For 401(k)s and other defined contribution plans, it's either when you turn 70½. or you retire, whichever is later. If you've inherited an IRA, you might also be subject to RMDs, even if your own retirement is years away. How much you need to take is usually based on the account balance at the end of the previous year, and...

CASSINO, Nov 25 — President-elect Donald Trump’s critical stance toward free trade could affect Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV’s business in North America, according to the Italian automaker’s chief executive officer Sergio Marchionne. Trump’s election “certainly is a game changer, mainly because I think that there are a number of conditions in the US which are not yet spelled out,” Marchionne told Bloomberg Television at an Alfa Romeo plant in Cassino, Italy. Statements Trump has made about trade are “a big issue” because of the North American Free Trade Agreement’s impact on Fiat’s operations in the US, Mexico and Canada. Trump...