It’s all but official. Chrysler is about to be cancelled.
This can be inferred by the recently disclosed decision to “put on hold until further notice” the new Chrysler models that aren’t coming. A leaked email from within Chrysler to a supplier – of parts for the new models that aren’t coming – reads as follows:
“The C6X (CA) program has been put on hold until further notice. Therefore, any spending associated with this program should be suspended immediately. Please contact [redacted] at [redacted]@stellantis.com if you have any questions.”
The C6X was supposed to be the first of a new line of devices to fill up the currently all-but-empty Chrysler dealer lots around the country. The only new vehicle they’ve had to offer buyers since 2023 – the last year you could buy a new 300 sedan – is the Pacifica minivan. It’s hard to maintain a brand on that basis.
But that’s all there is – and soon (apparently) there will be no more.
It’s probably a good thing. In the manner of letting go when an elderly or terminally ill person passes. It is sad, of course – but the inevitability of the thing provides a degree of both comfort and closure. Put another way, deluding oneself into believing the end isn’t inevitable makes the end – when it comes – more traumatic.
When Stellantis – the parent company of Chrysler as well as Dodge and Jeep and Ram – decided to play Climate Change Kabuki and cancelled models with engines like the 300 and the Dodge Charger/Challenger it was based upon – in favor of battery powered devices, it sealed the fate of both Chrysler and Dodge. The former CEO of Stellantis – Carlos Tavares – thought he was being both politically correct and financially sensible in that Chrysler and Dodge were having to pay huge sums to Elon Musk (Tesla) for “carbon credits” to offset the dearth of devices in the lineups of these two brands. The V8 300 and Charger were especially burdensome – in terms of regulatory compliance costs.
It cost Stellantis a great deal of money to offer these models. The millions that had to be spent buying “carbon credits” to appease the federal regulatory apparat for the sin of producing V8-powered muscle machines the federal apparat does not want produced – and so punishes, via environmental extortion – had to be recovered somehow. Stellantis tried to do by folding the cost of buying those “carbon credits” into the sticker price of vehicles like the 300 and Charger/Challenger.
This was a combination of craven, short-sighted and suicidal.
Short-sighted, because passing along the compliance costs assured sales of these models would wane – not because people didn’t want these models but because they were becoming increasingly unaffordable. There are only so many people who can afford a $50,000 V8 Charger – which (if you didn’t have to pay compliance costs) would cost much less than that.
Craven – because Stellantis could have done the ballsy thing and explained to the public why models like the 300 and Charger/Challenger had become so expensive. There is nothing intrinsically expensive about a big sedan (or coupe) with a big V8 engine. If anything, such vehicles are intrinsically inexpensive – because they are intrinsically simple, especially relative to a device. (People are of course told that devices are “simple,” having fewer parts – but this is disingenuous because while the number of parts may be lower their complexity is much greater.)
Evidence in support of this is right there in the rearview. Americans – working class and middle class Americans – used to commonly own big sedans (and wagons) with V8 engines, establishing as fact that they were once – and could be, again – affordable.
It is compliance costs that have made them unaffordable.
Why not explain this fact to people – so as to arouse their anger at the regulatory apparat that is making what were once regularly (and affectionately) styled American cars rich people’s cars? Observe that the only remaining rear-drive big cars with V8s are six figure luxury brand cars – such as those made by BMW and Mercedes-Benz – because rich people can afford to pay the compliance costs.
Rather than spend all those millions on compliance costs – and pass along those costs to buyers, who increasingly cannot afford to pay them – Stellantis could have spent the money on media/public relations blitz. Saturation ads on TV and online explaining what compliance costs are – and that Chrysler and Dodge were being bled white by that insufferable plate-lipped Albino and his “carbon credits” grift.
VW ought to have done the same but didn’t when it was accused of “noncompliance” back in 2016. Instead, it agreed to spend millions on ads – promoting devices made by its rivals, among other servile apologias. It agreed to sell devices instead of cars its buyers wanted. And that’s why VW is about to go the way of Chrysler. And probably Dodge, too.
The decision to cancel models that had intrinsic appeal – and that could have been made much more appealing, by lowering what they cost to sell by fighting the compliance regime that made them expensive to sell – in favor of more devices for which there is no market being precisely that. And more than that – as regards Chrysler and Dodge particularly, for they are (were) brands esteemed precisely because their vehicles were a thumb-in-the-eye to the pushing of devices.
Chrysler – and Dodge – not selling ballsy American cars with big V8s is like McDonald’s deciding to stop selling hamburgers in favor of soy patties with vegan mayonnaise.
And that’s why Chrysler’s done. Probably Dodge, too.
It’s all very sad – because unlike the passing of an elderly or terminally ill person, this passing isn’t natural. It is a kind of “died suddenly” – the departed having been both young and healthy prior to departure.
Hopefully, other brands that haven’t yet signed their own death warrants will face the existential threat and realize they will never comply their way out of this.
And man the Hell up – before it’s too late.
. . .
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I spent $34k (MSRP $41k) on a new Challenger Scat Pack from a large dealer in Vienna, VA in March of 2018. I flew in to pick up the car as the 2019’s were hitting the lot, and as a massive volume dealer, they had Challenger/Chargers/Wranglers discounted heavily. And were making a mint off of it. Two years ago, the identical car (plus heated seats now) was $20k over that plus dealer markup here in Florida. I just hope I can keep it running in the future.
I’ve got a mint 2012 Wrangler that I plan on keeping too. They’ve destroyed Jeep in many ways as well with the watering down of the brand and the electric crap.
I’m on the Challenger Forumz and we’ve all been saying it for several years. This company is doomed with the way it has all gone. Pisses me right off.
The handwriting was on the wall for Chrysler when it went from being Chrysler to Lee’s frontwheel drive shitbox company. The only thing Lee did to “save” Chrysler was to save it for the vulture “capitalists”. As one who used to race MoPars (drag racing and then road racing) it was sad to see Chrysler going downhill. Part of the problem was Chrysler’s internal conflicts where each section and division was a fiefdom unto itself and failure to co-operate with each other. The other BIG fuckup by Chrysler was their insistence on doubling down on drag racing and nascar (lower case on purpose), and REFUSING to recognize the the massive change in America that was embracing road racing and cars that could handle and brake over straightline and round-round racing. Yes, the Charger and Challengers of today are light years ahead of what was in the past, but they are a last gasp, and the usual suspects (frog ownership) did the same to Chrysler as they did to Nissan. RIP Chrysler.
So, Lee Iacocca, who hasn’t been at the head of Chrysler since 1992 is the reason that 33 years later, the company is dying/nearly dead?
Uh, OK.
read it again….
I’ve owned four Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth cars in the past. Two minivans, the Plymouth Voyager and the Chrysler Town and country EX. These were very useful cars. I used to haul 4X8 sheets with the rear hatch closed. Family hauling came in very handy.
My last Minivan, a 2001 was stolen from in front of my house. It was found two days later with considerable left front damage that left it inoperable.The car was totaled as it was only worth about $2,000 but worth a lot more to me. I had to get it out of the police auto pound where it was towed. But before I could do that I had to go to the main police station and get the official police report otherwise I would be charged for towing and storage which amounted to about $500. The main police station was in the “Heart of the Jungle”. I took a bus there and got my report. Going back I had to wait at the bus station which was about a block from the station but hidden from view by a convenience store. This was about noon time and I was the only White person around. Across the street there were three vibrant yutes smoking MaryJane and drinking from paper bags. They were eyeing me as I was only about 60 ft away. I didn’t have my Bowie knife with me that day. Luckily a police car parked itself at the corner, to I guess, watch over me. Even the little old black lady standing next to me at the bus stop exclaimed “Lordy they be smokin and it ain’t even dark outside”. The bus arrived about 10 min later and I was glad to escape from the “Jungle”. One of these days I’ll move out. There are many such tales and this was just one of them. I miss my minivan. Sad to see where America is headed.
Does anyone actually believe that the powers-that-be are so clueless as to believe that EVs are actually viable? Of course not! I’ve said it from the beginning of carbon credits and EV tax credits: The whole EV charade is nothing more than a way to destroy the auto industry. Seems to be working just fine.
Gimping people’s ability to drive is being accomplished not by merely cajoling them to switch from ICE to EV, but rather by destroying the auto industry by forcing them to do that which is contrary to their own interests, and bankrupting them. Without cars, one can not drive. Cash-For-Clunkers already took a good percentage of our best and most durable vehicles off the table; and now the remaining viable, durable old vehicles are becoming unobtanium -as are parts for them.
Destroy the manufacturing of autos; destroy viable older vehicles; and all that’s left are Clustertrucks and (Jewish)Lightnings, which already are showing their non-viability to those foolish and rich enough to have purchased them.
And thanks to the police state we have here, and Cash-For-Clunkers, we will have no Cuba here (Well, not as it pertains to jury-rigging and driving ancient vehicles…. The other stuff, like communism, we’re getting already).
Elon has himself a very nice setup.
You can buy a car from a competitor, he gets a cut of your money.
You can buy a car from him, he gets all of your money.
Heads he wins, tails you lose.
A monopoly, by any other name.
Just like Bill Gates—likes to appear virtuous & visionary but lines his own pockets the entire time. Same game, different spin.
Pretty nice deal, if you can get it. He’s far from stupid. I just don’t like or trust him.
I was in high school when the 5.7 Hemi 300c came out and everyone was talking about it. It was a genuinely awesome car and far ahead of the competitors, and I remember seeing them in the real rich neighborhoods. But they milked it dry for 20 years and didn’t update it once. Meanwhile the company squandered its development money on things that never had a chance of selling like the dodge dart and a bunch of other models that were cancelled within 5 years.
And why they were printing money with those triplets. They did a minor update in 2015 which added 8sp trans and some interior stuff. But they also discontinued the AWD V8 which a lot of people liked (bad move).
I really enjoyed my ’18 300 V8 RWD-only. In hindsight I should have put it in the barn.
Stellantis royally messed up the printing machine.
It’s a shame, but not unexpected, especially how Chrysler Corporation was like a manic-depressive sailing to the highest heights, then plunging to the lowest lows over the 100 years of the company.
They staved off a bankruptcy in 1978-79, went bankrupt and got shotgun married to Fiat this century, and then ended up on the Island of Misfit Toys that is Stellantis. Telling that both Daimler and Stellantis had basically no idea what to do with Chrysler or an American car company while Fiat at least left them alone and raked in the cash from their sales.
It is bittersweet because after being burned twice by Mopar lemons 🍋🍋 (A Sundance “Duster” and a Neon) and swearing off them for nearly 20 years I did buy a used Challenger and actually like it (Knock on wood it is reliable).
But nothing lasts forever and it looks like Chrysler will join Studebaker, Packard, AMC, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile (and De Soto and Plymouth) in that great junkyard in the sky. Dodge? Well I don’t know what the market is for a $61K or $78K (based on trim) EV “Charger” but I bet it ain’t huge.
Wall Street Apes:
Amazon electric vehicles seen charging in the snow. All these vehicles are being charged by a huge diesel generator. The generator is on, you can hear it running providing the power
“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose when you literally have a diesel powered generator electrifying all of the electric vehicles?”
This is Democrats’ “Green Energy.”
https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/1879378122606522435
EeeVees: total fraud. Repeal the IRA.
Repeal the IRA? Though they were way too leftist for my taste, they did right the good fight to rule themselves, or at least locally for decades.
Down in the bog side is where I long to be
Lyin in the dark with the Provo company
A comrade on me left and another one on me right,
And a clip of ammunition for me little Armalite…
The IRA is in lock-step agreement with the mass migration into Ireland.
Frauds from day one.
I don’t follow Irish politics as Ireland is kind of a backwater and not much of a threat to me personally. But I do recall reading a couple of articles pointing out that as usual, once the IRA won, they did appoint themselves the new boss, same as the old boss.
I still appreciate a scrappy underdog fighting the Brits. Some of my ancestors fled from England to freedom in a place called America, which used to exist.
Re: carbon credits, fines, etc…
Just the old charger/challenger/300 plant in Brampton ONT, say made 200K cars per year.
Let’s say average profit was $10K/car. 200,000 x 10000 = $2B with a B. Profit, not gross sales. I’m guessing, but I bet not far off.
So I hear the fines/credits whatever was $50M a year for that line of cars.
They should have just kept paying it. Granted, and advertised why too.
FYI – I posted this article on allpar.com. The post got 300+ views and half a dozen replies and was then deleted by the moderators. Another example of internet censorship for “wrong think” 🙁
Thanbks, Robbie – I’m sad, though, to hear it got deleted on a Forum about Mopars. Wow.
At least they aren’t wasting more money on an electric vehicle nobody wants. However it’s sounding like it’s too late at this point. They probably have no gas cars in the development pipeline either. The remaining gas vehicles of all their brands are too overpriced to boot. What a mess.
Sounds like the passing of Sergio Marchionne was probably the final nail in Chrysler’s coffin.
Was looking at inventory at a local dealer. A few vehicles even if you cut the the price in HALF it’s STILL too expensive…….. You can’t have a business model trying to sell a 30k vehicle for 85K. Especially if you are well known for your quality problems.. Was behind a Waggoner in traffic the other day, (which probably cost 80-100k) and the trim on the back hatch was not lined up… Really Chrysler?
If Eric’s assessment is correct and Chrysler is “done for”, it’s very bad for the citizenry of the USA.
Why?
1. Less jobs for everyone, mostly in the US, but worldwide.
2. One of the “Big 3” is no more, so less new vehicles of all types (cars, vans, trucks, etc) available to choose from market wide.
3. More people on welfare, mostly Americans.
4. Existing Chrysler vehicles will lose primary parts availability, and dealers will lose factory/manufacturer support.
I could go on & on, but the bottom line is we’ll all be paying more for any new, and used, vehicles, and have less choices, and be paying more in taxes, sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately, this destruction of the US economy is being done with a very specific (((agenda))) by a certain little hat tribe….
YMMV…
I got a Wagoneer as a rental one.
Lots of fun to drive around. Super comfortable. Kind of a gas hog. Too tall to fit inside my garage.
Would I rent one again? Maybe, if the price was right & it fit my needs. Would I buy one? No way.
The cost of Jeeps is insane. Waited for an oil change at local Chrysler Jeep dealer the other day for our handicap Pacifica and walked around looking at Jeeps to pass the time. Not one was under 70k. Who buys these things?? A question for Eric – this dealer is building a brand new “jeep store.” But will Jeeps be around? Are they going electric too?
Just look at England …..
Understanding what is happening there….and all commonwealth countries???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZouxwMO6x68
Carlos Tavares smells Jewish to me…
Maybe it is time to move to China. At least there are no stupid people there and they enjoy much more personal liberty than the retarded / parasitic / demented Idiocracy West.
Wow… could I have some of what you’re smoking?!?
Oh sure – the redchinese have more freedom; the freedom to be welded into their apartments and murdered. The freedom to disappear if they so much as utter a peep against anything the emperor xi says. The freedom to have children. Etc etc etc.
No stupid people? There are nothing BUT stupid people. Good at stealing and copying, but still stupid.
The “west” is sure in the toilet, but it’s still miles ahead of the life those mass murdering, baby raping dog eaters have.
And I agree wholly with the author of the article – just say NO and tell the people why. Yes, the ‘mainstream’ media might not run the message, but there are plenty of other ways. Been saying this for decades.
Alrighty then, Skippy. 300M people with greater than 160 IQ is stupid in your mind?
Dodge and Chrysler were deliberately being killed off the day Obama stole Chrysler and handed it over to Fiat along with 3 billion of taxpayer dollars. They were incredible cash cows for the Euro-peon parasites over the years. They did last longer than anyone thought they would.
Fiat at least had Sergio Marchionne, who actually liked the Hemi. They did a lot with very little (hellcat, demon etc) so it bought time.
They did buy time – beautiful cars/models.
That Springsteen song was 40 YEARS AGO!
it aint cummn back ever.
“…Stellantis could have done the ballsy thing and explained to the public why models like the 300 and Charger/Challenger had become so expensive…”
They didn’t even need to do that, they have lobbyists.
Lobbyist:
Chooses which nostril to blow load into.
[ Stellantis could have spent the money on media/public relations blitz. Saturation ads on TV and online explaining what compliance costs are – and that Chrysler and Dodge were being bled white by that insufferable plate-lipped Albino and his “carbon credits” grift.]
First and foremost,,, The American collective could give a rats hiney. Most today can’t afford food much less a car,,, even a car with an engine. Inflation caused by corpgov funding wars and bullshit green energy and 10 percent for Big Joe have eroded the dollar to a fourth world currency.
DEI has made what’s left of manufacturing a bad joke. State and local governments are avoiding any required spending,,, by spending what they don’t steal on DEI and other useless causes.
LA fires,,, Maui Fires. Intense hurricanes all supercharged by corpgovs new DEW toys so firms like Blackrock and ilk can come in and scoop up property for pennies.
Our new hero Elon scoops up billions in the carbon tax global warming joke. Anyone with more than one brain cell can look at a temperature chart covering the last 400 million years and see we are in a serious, serious cooling trend while our beloved and lame corpgov is removing all forms of fuels we could use as fuel for heat in its war on carbon,,, a necessary element for all life.
We cannot build anything less expensive because the money has been destroyed. Inflation always out paces income. Be ready to go broke! Zelenski just purchased a million dollar home complete with bunker on Billionaire Island using our extorted taxes and thanks you!
Con-gress?
One of their last bills is waging war on the ICC if they arrest our ‘real’ president in Tel Aviv.
The billions corpgove gave Ukraine and Israhell could have been used to fill that reservoir in LA / provide relief for those in North Carolina. The billions I believe Trump will spend in a war with Iran would also be better spent here at home. Maybe splurge a little and fix some infrastructure here at home?
Speaking of scum politicians Gov. Newscum and Pocohontas both have sites up taking donation for the victims in the California fires. Both Websites link up to a Democratic Superpac site according to Martin Armstrong.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/corruption/dems-profiting-on-california-tragedy/
58 standing ovations. . .
I prefer Sackashitwea…But, yeah.
I resemble that improper spelling of Sacajawea. She led Lewis and Clark up the Missouri River to the headwaters. She carried her papoose, she was a good woman and an attractive Native American woman, she lived.
The Mandan welcomed the expedition and were willing to trade wampum for blankets. The blankets were not smallpox laden, smallpox was a worldwide problem for centuries. Smallpox epidemics didn’t hit the Mandan tribe until 1837-8.
Remember, milkmaids in England who contracted cowpox were immune to smallpox disease.
Eventually, a vaccine is a proven method to prevent smallpox, so everybody is vaccinated with the smallpox vaccine because it works.
Even George Washington knew better, inoculate the troops so they don’t get the dreaded smallpox.
You won’t have millions of skin-scarred, pock-marked humans looking at each other and wondering why it happened to them.
You solve the problem, medicine to the rescue.
400 million deaths due to smallpox are massive quantities.
There are enough diseases and sickness and natural calamities, war isn’t necessary.
A German war bride said those words, to that effect, to me one day. Been a long time.
I asked her how she got here, “How do you think?”
Better to be here than Germany after WWII.
The Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Chief George Gillette bawled like a baby when he signed the Pick-Sloan Act to build the Garrison Dam which then formed Lake Sacajawea.
Old what’s her name is a sack of shit, that is all.
“If people are worried about endemic smallpox [long lingering or permanent presence of the disease in the population], it disappeared from this country not because of our mass herd immunity [derived from the vaccine]. It disappeared because of our economic development. And that’s why it disappeared from Europe and many other countries…[its disappearance is] not from universal vaccination.”
Dr. Tom Mack of USC, who said about himself: “My credentials include probably spending more time working up [analyses of] population-based outbreaks of smallpox than virtually anybody ever has.”
Ladies and gentlemen…we’ve got a JEW in our midst, pushing JEW VIROLOGY / VACCINE PROPAGANDA.
“ And man the Hell up – before it’s too late.”
Good luck with that. DEI_BS has ensured real men, not effeminate soy boy metrosexuals, succeed in modern American business. I for one have no sympathy for Stellantis. Tho I do feel bad for no -executive white collar, blue collar, and suppliers.
I shouldn’t post anything whilst loopy on cold medicine. Effeminate soy boys move up, not real men. Sorry.
When you are told what to do and you do it, you are not free to do what you want. You are a slave.
After being punished, beaten into submission, the morale should improve.
I’d rather be a free man in my grave
Than to live as a puppet or a slave
The harder they come
The harder they fall
One and all – Jimmy Cliff, The Harder They Come
“ Rather than spend all those millions on compliance costs – and pass along those costs to buyers, who increasingly cannot afford to pay them – Stellantis could have spent the money on media/public relations blitz. Saturation ads on TV and online explaining what compliance costs are – and that Chrysler and Dodge were being bled white by that insufferable plate-lipped Albino and his “carbon credits” grift.” – Eric
Exactly! The automakers should have taken out full page ads in all the major newspapers and magazines, maybe even run an ad during the Stupor Bowl, explaining why vehicles were so much more expensive and adding a tag line asking people to call/write their Clowngress critter to put a stop to it. Woukd have stopped this BS dead in its tracks if enough people did that, but the manufacturers gelded themselves instead, now it’s probably too late to reverse the tide.
Yes. This should have been done 35 years ago, but its not too late. Rven now.
Just have to be the skunk in the woodpile, but do you think an anti establishment campaign would get any traction at all with our (5, is it) media conglomerates, all run by the same cadre of communist elitists swindlers?
Which is why Obastard and the rest are so anxious for control of internet speech.
Traction? They wouldn’t even run it. Big Media censors anti-gov content, usually without even being asked.
That’s exactly right. However, as Eric has pointed out, they could have specifically itemized all of the grift on the Monroney label for every car shopper to see. I’m still not sure why this is not done today.
The problem is the CEOs of these companies are all Globalists and hate us “peasants”
Even if I was dumb/wealthy enough to pony up the big bucks for a brand new vehicle the truth is they really do not appeal to me.. at all. These led Christmas lights plastic clad futuristic looking goof-mobiles really turn me off.
Yesterday I rode up north to purchase a 2000 Nissan Frontier XE 4×4 x-cab from an elderly couple who had it parked under a carport since new. 88k miles manual shift. It is in beautiful condition looks and drives like new. Paid $7650 cash. Normally I would think that was too much money but this thing is nice and I am actually thrilled to be able to get it. Eric talking good about his Frontier really motivated me to go look at it.
The fact is, Chrysler hasn’t made anything I would be interested in, in a very long time.
Sad maybe, but not really much of a loss for me.
Sounds like you got a great deal, especially with very low miles for the year model.
Congrats on that new Fronty, AMC Guy!
It’s basically the same as my ’02 except mine’s not a 4×4. These are great trucks and with just 88k on yours, you have 200k to go before you might need to get into the engine to replace something. The only thingI don’t like about mine is that it does not have a limited slip axle and so it’s pathetic on any kind of slick surface, even wet grass!
Thanks guys. So you do think the price was fair?
Drove it the hour and a half home on clean roads and was nice but haven’t tried winter conditions yet. Actually have not even engaged the four wheel drive to see if it works. The old couple seemed so sweet and honest that my wife and I just took it for a small test drive came back and paid them. Service records including recent timing belt kit installed by their long time mechanic help put me at ease.
Hi AMC,
You got a deal! If you look around, you’ll find that similar vintage Frontys with 150k-plus in good shape sell for around $4,500 or even more. I’m glad you found this one – and that you paid what you did!
Thanks Eric! Your endorsement is very helpful.
I woke up this morning second guessing a little because we don’t necessarily need another vehicle at the moment. Went out in the garage and looked at it today and felt better again. 🙂
Congratulations that sounds like a fantastic buy!
Hi Burn it Down.
I don’t think we should let it go because if we enter into the long night things will be a lot worse than they are now. Just look at England where they threaten the parents of children whose children have been raped by illegal aliens but do virtually nothing to the rapists. I suspect we’re going to need someone like Charles Martel sooner than we think if we don’t get a handle on things.
People tell me that tariffs won’t work, but when the jobs disappear and the “natives” and junkies strip a building so badly it can never be refurbished, the skilled trades and institutional knowledge from engineering to custom fabrication are lost and move away and whoever is left goes onto welfare.
Then when some multi national opens up shop in that location but only hires illegal aliens and pays them wages so low the city gives them free accommodation, tell me is this better or worse than tariffs?
Comment should have been below Burn It Down’s.
“ I don’t think we should let it go“
“. . . the skilled trades and institutional knowledge from engineering to custom fabrication are lost and move away ” . . .
Landru,
I think that let it go comment more or less pertained to my own mental state. It’s been hard watching Chrysler die a slow agonizing death. I left Chrysler in 2008 and have been gone for 16 years but I still remember the buzz of the mid 90s – 2000 era like it was yesterday. Those were thrilling times to be working in the industry as an engineer.
With respect to your second comment, it is too late. I have moved to the other side of the country. I’ve given up automotive engineering as I don’t see anything there worth investing the remainder of my life into. I refuse to be part of the apparatus willingly erecting the ADAS control / surveillance grid to the detriment of its customers.
The institutional knowledge at Chrysler has long been corrupted beginning with the Daimler merger that had the end result of forcing Chrysler to use higher cost Mercedes parts often with lower quality than the what was being replaced. And for this privilege, Chrysler was fleeced of its balance sheet cash both at the time of the original merger and later on by internal write downs and technology transfer charges.
The younger engineers were trained not to think of what costs are per unit sold but rather about how reuse of more expensive part from Mercedes was for the good of the company as a whole. To hell with whether it was better for the Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep customer.
My mentors were either driven out by Daimler management or retired as soon as they could to escape.
It only got worse during the Cerberus and FCA era.
What was left is a culture that no longer knows how to innovate, and has no idea of how to satisfy customer wants and needs.
So the comment about letting it go was a self reflection that no matter how I long for Chrysler to be what it once was, it never will be.
I watched civil aviation go from what it was in 1980 to some worthless milltard DEI homosexuals chihuahua pissing on mechanics toolboxes and part time janitor in a bear costume. I retired.
The USA is slowly (then suddenly) becoming Cuba. The Orangeman might put a halt to this or more likely slow it for a while but inevitability we will fall. Look at California, the idiot majority of them are fully on board with climate change hoax. No one will speak out. Now they lost their house to sinecure incompetency of the state and it’s the climate’s fault. I dislike insurance companies with a passion, but you can’t blame them for pulling out after watching this state water miss-management in action. They saw it coming.
Sidebar; just got back from a trip and rented via upgrade a Chrysler 300 internal combustion V6. Great car for rental, room, power fun to drive. Went through a rental company called Fox/Eurocar (never heard of them before). They are OK. Hertz counter was empty. What are the Rental companies going to do to survive? (Or not.) EV’s are not even remotely practical for rentals let alone no one wants to rent them. Hertz will be gone by the end of 2025 is my prediction.
Cool, now we get to walk fom the airport to our final destination.
Let’s not forget how Stellantis fucked up Jeep by overpricing and over-complicating a product that initially had appeal due to it’s simplicity, affordability and utility.
Jeep is the next dead man walking. *YAWN*
From the county farm
Another man done gone
I didn’t know his name
He had a long chain on
He killed another man
I don’t know where he gone
— Vera Hall, Another Man Done Gone
Even a dyed-in-the-wool Mopar guy like Uncle Tony has taken to Schadenfreude over this unfolding and unmitigated disaster.
This rant is a riot…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ0x8uXrf84&t=1s
He said ‘Fratzonic’ — LOL!
Believe it or not, this all happened because of a typo. It was supposed to be Fartzonic.
This would have changed everything. 🙂
Colorado State Patrol has two primary vehicles: Dodge Chargers and Dodge Durangos. The Durangos are being replaced by Ford Excursions. What will replace the Chargers when they reach EOL? The county sheriffs drive F150s, will that turbo 6 be enough oomph to chase down speeders?
Long term, I think there will be purpose-built vehicles for CSP and other law enforcers. Oshkosh, Grumman, AM General and Textron will be happy to build to a national standard vehicle, one that runs on diesel or gasoline or CNG (as specified, since government will “need” to have an exception from EV mandates). Maybe they’ll buy a Ford or GM engine factory -heck, maybe just buy the River Rouge Plant, one assembly line under one roof for all the country. It just takes money, right? Could even come standard with restraining hooks and straps in the back to haul your ass off to debtor’s prison.
That was already attempted with Carbon Motors 10 years ago.
Ford has the capability and even a design to build a new Crown Vic on the current rear wheel drive Explorer platform, but it wouldn’t be a Panther like the old Vic/Town Car.
Very sad. It’s not like the 300 and the Pacifica weren’t selling even with the C02 compliance markups. Chrysler is killing the goose 🪿 that lays the golden egg. This makes no sense.
Unless youre the CEO doin the deed and making bank for killing a company.
Spent 14 years of my life at Chrysler and was there through the DaimlerChrysler and hellish Cerberus eras as the company was methodically bled dry by the financial ghouls.
I witnessed the buildings I had worked in being turned over to the city of Detroit. I’ve literally seen them stripped by the natives of copper wiring and copper roofing . They were stripped of anything else valuable as scrap. I’ve seen the buildings then left to rot out in the open lacking a roof and windows.
Wonder how long it will be until that pattern repeats itself at the Auburn Hills Headquarters building? The building is 5.4 million square feet of office space, test and development laboratories, and prototype manufacturing all under one roof. It is the second or third largest building in the United States depending on which sources you believe.
Who needs or can financially maintain a building of that size in this day and age after the COVIDpocalypse?
It’s time to let it go. We had a good run and it sure was fun while it lasted. This too shall pass.
I’m beginning to think Las Vegas, with its destruction of the past, has the right idea. At least when it comes to commercial space, why pretend that architecture has to be permanent? A building that once suited the business model but no longer does so isn’t all that valuable. Any buyer will have to spend a lot of money trying to retrofit it to their way of doing things.
There’s a building nearby that has been for sale pretty much since it was built. It’s in a nice location, on the edge of a strip mall with a green space on the side and bike path. I don’t believe it has ever been occupied. I used to imagine having my business in that building, as fools often do. I could imagine all the people I’d employ there, what they’d do and where they’d do it. But the business failed to get traction and so the building still sits empty.
At one point some kids broke out all the windows and the wood beams are water stained. The local community college was going to set up a computer training center in it so it got partially fixed up, but then COVID hit and that all came to a halt. At least the shell is tight now.
Without a tenant or prospective buyer, the prudent move would be to bulldoze the building and sell the land underneath so that someone can build what they need. Clinging to the past, especially when needs change, doesn’t make sense unless there’s some very compelling reason to hold on to it. Just being old isn’t enough of a reason.
All valid point RK
However, I don’t think you appreciate the scale of such a building as the Chrysler Tech Center. Loot at it on Google maps.
5.4 Million Square Feet. 500 acres. It has its own ride and steering test track. The demolition costs alone would be staggering.
It is an albatross in an age where TPTB think AI is going to do everything for free.
Oh I’ve been past it. My cousin’s husband worked there. Amazing building, on par with the old steel mills of my hometown, but clean.
In Hoffman Estates, Illinois, the 2.4 million square foot former HQ (their last) of Sears is being bulldozed for a data center. It barely made 30 years old. Most of it opened in 1992 (when they moved from Sears Tower in downtown Chicago) and part of it was only built in 2014. They are saving NOTHING from it. All the buildings, parking garages, even all the trees are being razed. Corporate stupidity is as wasteful as big government.
I suppose Hoffman Estates is at least lucky it’s being torn down. Sears HQ used to be on the west side of Chicago (1900-1973) before moving downtown to Sear Tower in 1973. Some of the Sears buildings are still standing abandoned 50 years after they moved out. Sears Tower at least was redeveloped…..
While we trip over bums everywhere in town after town full of empty “rentals” and even more pending sales.
It feels kinda nice to not be one a those “losers”.
In fact it feels great because I must be better than them.
In fact fuck those homeless “arsonists” to death on sight.
In fact theyre just subhuman animal inbred rubble crawlin Gazans so kill em all for not slaving for RTX like good boys.
Greasy slope.
Hi Burn it Down.
I don’t think we should let it go because if we enter into the long night things will be a lot worse than they are now. Just look at England where they threaten the parents of children whose children have been raped by illegal aliens but do virtually nothing to the rapists. I suspect we’re going to need someone like Charles Martel sooner than we think if we don’t get a handle on things.
People tell me that tariffs won’t work, but when the jobs disappear and the “natives” and junkies strip a building so badly it can never be refurbished, the skilled trades and institutional knowledge from engineering to custom fabrication are lost and move away and whoever is left goes onto welfare.
Then when some multi national opens up shop in that location but only hires illegal aliens and pays them wages so low the city gives them free accommodation, tell me is this better or worse than tariffs?