Autocar - First for car news and reviews

Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne will be the new CEO of Chrysler, the company has confirmed.

Marchionne, who successfully brought Fiat back into profit in 2005 after years of losses, will take over at the Chrysler helm when it emerges from bankruptcy.

"Chrysler is on track to re-emerge from bankruptcy in 60 days," said Marchionne. "I will become Chrysler CEO after that."

Current Chrysler boss Bob Nardelli is due to stay in the post until June, although company president Thomas...Read the full article

And so begins a new era...I hope he does a better job of controlling the Fi'sler group than Carlos Ghone (spelling?) has done with Renault since taking over and being hailed the God of the industry after 'saving' Nissan - er closing a couple of factories and signing off a few new models was not exactly genious. Anyway I can see the sense in what Fiat are doing and will watch with interest.

 

Cue Horseandcart..............................

Most likely Chrysler will now pull down Fiat just as it did Daimler... this is one of those dinosaurs that is best left to die. Name me a decent car to roll out of one of their factories that wasn't the Dodge Viper or Challenger. Save them, say goodbye to everything else.

I mean, the Sebring??? Please...

 Well i had a soft spot for the 300c, and aso liked the Pacifica, but we didnt get that here.Used to love the look of the Eagle Vision as a kid,but Eagle disappeared before the days of Mercedes.Ah well

Spelling? Yes, it's 'Gohsn', and 'genius'.

With no emotional attachment and patriotic considerations Marchionne should, in theory, be able to sweep clean within Chrysler.

In some ways it will be an easy job for him.  Even if he makes factory cuts and redundancies, he can always sit there and say "well, the other choice was to close the whole organisation" and people will have to accept that.

It will be an interesting thing to watch.

I think we may well see a whole raft of Fiat models rebadged as Chrysler over in the States in the short term, not sure how much of a foothold Fiat has over there but surely it will improve by utilising the Chrysler network, same as Chevrolet did with Daewoo over here.  In the long term, I reckon we could see Alfa Romeo utilising some of Chryslers rear drive platforms for the next 166.

Welsh Wizard:

Spelling? Yes, it's 'Gohsn', and 'genius'.

Thanks, I'm Italian so English is not my first language but always good to be corrected unless you're horseandcart then its just plain rude.. 

 

N0077666:

I think we may well see a whole raft of Fiat models rebadged as Chrysler over in the States in the short term

 

The Chrysler 500? That would definitely confuse Americans!

"But I've got the 300 and this is so much smaller"

followed by

"How do I get in it anyway?"

and

"Do I get one for each foot?"

Surely the first job with in preparing the current Fiat products for the US market is to increase the size of the cupholders?

 

 well i think this is effectively the end of fiat. the italian economy is a toilet, and fiat must be borrowing very heavily to finance any deal. i dont think fiat badge cars will sell well in the usa, and one fiat 500 model wont save them. i think europe will soon be dominated by peugeot and volkswagen, and everyone else will just be bit players.

Audi Tastic:

Surely the first job with in preparing the current Fiat products for the US market is to increase the size of the cupholders?

Maybe they could rebrand the 500 as the Chrysler Happy Meal?!

 As and when Marchionne pulls all this off he will be the salesman of the century as he is now planning to take control of Chrysler GM Eeurope and now  GME Latin  america all at once without spending one Euro of Fiat cash and he will get $20B of the US and German governments to do it. Amazing, he will have taken control of about 35% of the US car industry total sales in just a few months. See article below

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124170522501296103.html

 

I get the impression that the top management of GM have now completely capitulated to whatewver fate befalls GM and the US Auto task force justs wants to present a plan that seems to fulfill the Omaba election pledges on Detroit even if , in reality, Chrysler is being given to Fiat and GM is being turned into another Chryler, totally a US only company and therefore doomed to fade away in 5 or 6 years.