burlapp car

Not a happy ending…

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Or would it be?

Sergio Marchionne is obviously the worst guy to head a car company.
So if it takes a new owner to get a decent guy in charge, that wouldn’t be the worst thing.

But if Jeep is sold to China, what will happen to the other guys? Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat and Alfa.

Chrysler can easily become a main brand again. With good products, why not.
Dodge could be an SUV brand? Since sports cars aren’t much of a thing anymore…
Fiat still has a huge operation in Europe.
Alfa is just starting again. Poor guys….
Who would be willing to take that on?

(I guess, someone was willing to pay billions to get Opel. So anything is possible.)
They are still a good option for someone who wants to enter the US market. Distribution, facilities. Everything is already there.

Could a French company be interested? Although Peugeot will have their hands full with Opel for a while.
And Renault is busy rebuilding Mitsubishi…

Or another Chinese company ? A path to enter the US market in a big way.

How about Tata from India ? After Jaguar and Land Rover, would they be interested in more mainstream brands?

How about us? All of us on this site. We could maybe all get together and raise some money through Kit Starter. Maybe enough to get just one of the FCA brands. (I’d like to do something with Chrysler)

What a mess… 

Conversation 6 comments

  1. With the right investment, smart product planning and effective marketing, this sad situation is certainly salvagable. Let Chrysler handle premium cars and CUVs, Dodge handles mainstream cars and CUVs, Ram trucks go back to being Dodge trucks, and Jeep goes back to being Jeep. If more drastic measures are required, combine Chrysler and Dodge into a single car and CUV brand, and Jeep can handle trucks and SUVs. As for the Italian brands, Fiat goes back to Europe while Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Ferrari are combined into a single premium Italian car group covering numerous segments.

  3. Why do you care who owns them so badly? Much better for FCA to sell than continue to be neglected like most of the brands currently are.

    "All of us on this site. We could maybe all get together and raise some money through Kit Starter. Maybe enough to get just one of the FCA brands. (I'd like to do something with Chrysler)" Wow, that's going to keep me laughing for a while. First off, it's Kickstarter. Secondly, no WAY would you raise enough. Third, no way would shareholders allow such a sale.

  5. 1. Uber or Lyft should buy Chrysler and Fiat passenger vehicles – and focus on taxi-like vehicles. Mid-level luxury would be like Chryslers of yesteryear, both driverless and driven, and Fiats would be the more common everyday economy transport.
    2. Amazon should buy Dodge trucks and Fiat utility vehicles – and develop it's delivery fleet for both corporate and personal use (both driverless and driven)
    3. Maybe…. Playstation or Xbox, or some big game maker should buy Alfa as a brand for hyper-realistic AR driving/racing

  6. Sergio has run FCA into the ground. There is no need for any of this. FCA needs to kill Fiat and Chrysler altogether. Neither brand has any market cache anywhere in the world. Ram needs to be folded back into Dodge, and Maserati needs to go back to Ferrari – so they don't have to ruin the brand with SUVs.

    That leaves you with Dodge as a mainstream brand, Alfa as a premium brand, and Jeep as the off road lifestyle brand. Dodge and Alfa can share FWD and RWD chassis like every other normal automaker does, and offer on road crossovers while Jeep keeps it's off road cred and moves towards Range Rover.

    Why is this so hard…

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