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Old 11-18-2007, 06:33 PM   #3
stovt001


 
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Drives: 2006 Cobalt, 2004 Taurus wagon
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: California
Posts: 3,810
Yeah that plan just will not fly. Sadly Daimler just royally screwed Chrysler over, and by the time they sold it was not looking good that they would be able to be saved anyway, and having an industry outsider at the helm hasn't helped any. The all-star team the recruited around him from inside the industry sure are a help, but sadly Chrysler still has waaay too much to do and waaay too little time to do it. Look at the facts. They only have one decent compact, the PT Cruiser, and that has barely been improved and updated since it was introduced, and now it is going to be killed off. Their mid-size sedan is nowhere near competitive. Their full-size sedans are great, but mostly performance oriented and the quality just isn't there. Other than that they have trucks and Jeep. Jeep is fine. It has survived more failed owners than pretty much anything else out there, and if they kill off the Compass and Patriot you won't find a product portfolio more well suited to the brand's target market out there. So you have very few competitive existing models, with a ton on the chopping block, almost nothing in the pipeline, and horrid material and build quality on everything else. Times do not look good for Chrysler.

I don't see this plan flying because some of Chrysler Group's best passenger cars are the Dodge Challenger, Charger, and Viper, and you just can't rebrand those as Chryslers in the American market. With the truck market the way it is, you just can't have a successful stand-alone truck only brand. It only works for GMC because they are combined with Buick and Pontiac.
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