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Q&A: Sergio Marchionne
Feb. 10 2011 - 2:44 pm | 3,094 views | 0 recommendations | 1 comment


Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Chrysler and Fiat

Two years ago, Chrysler’s chances for survival looked grim. But after making it through bankruptcy with the help of government loans, Chrysler is now majority-owned by the UAW’s VEBA health care trust and is trying to mount a comeback. Calling the shots is Sergio Marchionne, chief executive of both Chrysler and Italy’s Fiat Autos SpA, which owns 25% of Chrysler and hopes to boost that to 51% through an initial stock offering later this year. Chrysler reported a net loss of $652 million for 2010, but is making money on an operating basis and generating positive cash flow, putting Marchionne’s turnaround plan ahead of schedule. For 2011, Chrysler expects to turn the corner, with revenues of at least $55 billion (up from $41.9 billion last year), $2 billion in operating profit and net income of $200 million to $500 million.

I sat down with Marchionne recently to talk about Chrysler’s brush with death, its partnership with Fiat and its likely IPO later this year.

Forbes: Are you surprised you’re ahead of plan?

It was the unexpressed part of the plan. I’m getting to the point now in my life when I have a track record. It’s like having a past. (Laughs) We have a habit here of under-promising and over-delivering. And I don’t want to break that track record now. We need to find out whether we’ve got traction. I couldn’t have done more from a product standpoint than I’ve done. I mean you know, I tried every trick in the book that I knew and I invented some, but you know, 16 products in 12 months – at least that part of it was a record. The rest of it is to be proven. Look, we didn’t do too badly. We sold 1.6 million cars worldwide last year. That’s not bad.

Forbes: You’ve obviously been pushing people hard. Do you worry about pushing too hard?

Yeah, always. After a while you develop this keen sense of burnt engines or engines that are just about ready to crash. So I yank them right off. I tell them to get out, go do something; go play with the kids, go play at Disney World for two weeks. Just get your head set back. We’ve got to do this. And I can tell when people need time out of here…I do worry about it, because they work that hard. …I just took them through what the (target) looks like for 2011 and it’s a very, very tough uphill battle. Selling 1.6 million cars in North America, you know. That was the target that we set for ourselves (up from 1.1 million in 2010). We didn’t downgrade the guidance but we told people effectively we can get to $2 billion in operating profit even by selling 1.4 million here. As long as I end up selling over 2 million cars worldwide. The real target here is to sell 2 million cars worldwide. And we sold 1.6 million this year, so it’s a hell of a jump. It’s more than a 20 percent increase. And that’s a tough hurdle.

Forbes: So if you do a little less in the U.S. than planned, you’ve got to do a little more internationally. What’s the driver for growth there?

One is the European distribution that Fiat is providing both in Europe and in Latin America. And then we’ve put a huge amount of emphasis on developing Asia-Pacific now, especially for Jeep.

Forbes: You’re really behind in Asia; it’s not too late?

You know, it’s very easy to catch up in a growing market. It’s relatively difficult to even stay alive in a declining one, never mind joining into the rat race, but China’s going to explode.

Forbes: So do you feel that your plan is at risk?

No. By the way, we live in risk all the time. Right? I mean gas prices, Egypt, you name it, there’s – you know, there’s always uncertainty associated with execution but I just want to make sure that people understand that this is the year where we’ve got to prove to ourselves and we’ve got to prove to others that we are different.

Forbes: Everyone thinks you’re a workaholic…

Yeah I am a workaholic but I do shut the industrial machine down, otherwise this thing is going to fall apart. I mean I worked all day Saturday, I landed at midnight, I was in the office here the morning after at nine. We worked late last night and were here this morning at seven. And I have to be in Europe – I’ve got to be on the phone at four o’clock in the morning with Europe, which is the issue.

And I use the Blackberries (He carries 6 of them). The Blackberries are wonderful, lethal instruments to destroy your life. (Laughs) …When I answer, it’s yes, no, forget it, you know? But you do get an answer and you get it right away, unless I don’t want to answer you. If I don’t answer you it’s because I’m bored stiff and I felt the question was irrelevant. Now that’s a pretty presumptuous thing on my part but I figure if you thought it was smart enough to bother me, if I don’t answer you there’s got to be a reason. That stopped, by the way, a lot of noise.

The important thing for us is to maintain speed. It’s the thing that distinguishes us from the rest of the crowd. I mean we’ve been incredibly fast at what we’ve done. We made mistakes on the way, but I think fundamentally the capability of this house is just to respond at the speed of light. …Could it have been done better? Yeah, no doubt. Could it have been done any faster without really damaging brand equity? The answer is no.

I think I took it right to the wire. Anything faster than this would have been an outright disaster and I had to let off on a couple of issues because I had to allow the machine to readjust because we just pushed it too hard. So we were two weeks late on a couple of products. In one case I think we were probably about three weeks late. But that’s nothing, I mean in the scheme of things when you’re talking about a new product launch, and if you look at the complexity of what we do and supplier readiness and the manufacturing piece, quality, and all those issues coming to bear on one event; to make sure that you don’t screw up any of those…that’s why the building out of the team here was crucial. We had to find people that could work together that could really sort of share this commitment. Of all the things that I’m proud of in this place that’s probably the one that I’m most proud of. I think we found a great group of kids here. We all carry out responsibilities and we do our stuff and we don’t have to go check with the other guy. We just execute. You have huge amounts of freedom. Your rope is really long. If you want to hang yourself with that rope it’s your choice but fundamentally if you’re given the responsibility you go out there and you execute.

…A lot of people last year at the Detroit Auto Show asked us, you know, are you still going to be here in 12 months? The only thing that held back the execution squad from shooting Chrysler was me.

Forbes: So was it you who convinced the government not to pull the plug on Chrysler?

Oh no, no. I certainly offered the government an alternative…People on the outside, I don’t think they can really appreciate what went on at that time…This could have been Armageddon here. It could have been an absolute devastation. And so the fact that I showed up –I think that they looked at this guy and they said look, he’s got some credibility. Somehow he managed to fix Fiat and maybe he can fix this thing, too, but we’ll lend them the money, keep them on a very short leash, charge them a huge amount of interest on the way out, don’t give them any equity and make them sweat for everything he gets. I tell you, I mean it was a well-crafted deal for Treasury. They ended up getting a technical partner at the table who could only make this work if they delivered on their commitments and really went way beyond that. So their argument I would assume was look, it’s not just Sergio. It’s Sergio and a bunch of people who want to try and do this. Sergio has got a reputation of being able to fix this stuff. What’s our downside risk? So we blow it by two years; supposing he gets it wrong and this thing goes? You know, by that time GM will be out of the woods, somebody will pick up (Chrysler) and fix it at that time. And I think there was a reasonable expectation that there was – I’m not sure it was reasonable – there was a possibility that we could have made it. I never asked the people at Treasury what odds they gave Chrysler of making it on its own.

Forbes: I’d say it was about five percent?

Well, for them to give me the money they must have been slightly higher than that. I don’t think anybody was that calculating in saying look, we’re going to buy them a lease on life for 24 months and then if it doesn’t work we’ll park them somewhere else. The only thing I know is that at least the experiment to date has worked. To date. That’s why I think it’s also important that Chrysler pay back the government and effectively de-risk the position off their balance sheets and effectively give Chrysler the freedom to go back and (be independent). I think it needs to do this. That’s my Christmas wish for 2011.

Forbes: Now, is it your plan to pay everything back to the government before that or refinance it with a different lender?

The repayment can only happen if I refinance with third parties, so I need to refinance the debt back. I’d like to do it with arm’s length people. Like Ford has borrowed money from other people to get this done….You know the difference between us and GM is that GM ended up getting 60 billion dollars of equity. I didn’t get equity. I got nothing. So I’d like to pay them back and substitute it with something else.

Forbes: So how is that going with the banks?

I think that before we even get there we need to renegotiate some parts of the agreements between ourselves and the VEBA, which is the UAW health care fund, and the Treasury because the way in which this deal was structured none of this was possible before 2013. That was a request that I made and that Treasury agreed with. I wanted to make sure that everybody was at the table for a sufficiently long period of time, to allow Chrysler to make it. I mean nobody had any expectations back in 2009 that you and I would be having a conversation this year, two years before 2013, about refinancing and going public. Nobody. It wasn’t in the cards. We’ve got to go back and rejig the deal because all the dates need to be moved up.

The way in which the thing got structured is that the VEBA amount that was owed, half of it was converted to equity,and half stayed on our balance sheet, so we still owe them over $4 billion, which you know needs to be paid out over time, but the other half is sitting as a shareholding in Chrysler so they need to get that asset monetized. The best way to monetize the VEBA is to take Chrysler public and allow them to sell that stock in the marketplace.

Forbes: A lot of critics say you’re an opportunist who is using Chrysler merely as a way to get Fiat into the U.S. market for free. Was that part of the plan?

We always knew that Fiat was going to come as an iconic brand in the U.S. What drove this was fundamentally an ability to offer Chrysler what they were missing. That’s where it started. And in exchange for which I said look, if you want all this stuff that I’ve paid money for and I’ve worked on a whole long period of time, then I need to get some recognition for this. And that’s where the equity interest in Chrysler came out of. And the deal, by the way, was structured in such a way as they gave me 35 percent potentially of something that at the time was worth absolutely nothing. So I mean everybody’s all screaming bloody murder. There was no equity put in here by anybody. All the money that has been put in by the government has been through loans and paying over a billion dollars in interest, you know. Now, it’s not a walk in the park in terms of money, you know. But I wanted to be able to leverage the value of the technology that Fiat had and see financial recognition for what we were bringing to the party, knowing full well that the value of whatever it is that I got back was absolutely contingent on the execution of a plan to bring Chrysler back and to make it a viable entity.

I mean to be perfectly honest it was an incredibly fair trade on everybody’s part. I risked everything – I got 35 percent of something that was worth nothing. With the promise to deliver value to everybody involved here, to pay back the government, and eventually turn that nothing into something, in exchange for which I got a chance to give you technology and then to run it. And that’s it, right? I mean it was a real simple barter in the straight sense of the word, and it was an incredibly risky barter for everybody at the table….The Treasury put money into this. And it needed to get paid back. I mean to us, to Fiat, what could have happened is that reputationally I could have been wiped out if this thing did not work out. Fiat would have ended up with egg all over its face but we were not here anyway. So fundamentally from a brand equity standpoint, the damage would have been not insurmountable. I could have dealt with it.

Forbes: You mentioned you wanted to be able to leverage the technology that Fiat had….

That I could bring here and start using it. And you’ll see the first product was the Fiat 500. By the way, that car, if it does 50 to 80,000 cars a year in the U.S. in my view it will have been a more than resounding success. And that, by the way, by American standards, given the size of the market; you know, 12, 13, 14 million vehicles, you know, 50,000 cars is not a huge number. The Fiat 500 was designed to deal with a car like the Mini Cooper, because I say this with all humility, but it’s a cool small car. And that’s what Mini sells, and I think we can beat the hell out of Mini in that segment because one, from a price standpoint we’re much better than they are, but secondly I think the car has got a lot more to offer. The feedback (from the automotive press) has been phenomenally good. Nobody expected the car to be that good. Performance, the finish of the car; I mean this is a real car.

Forbes: Is it much different from the European version?

It’s adapted to U.S. needs. It’s not visible to the guy who sees the car, but we had to deal with differences in requirements between the U.S. homologation process and European, so in that sense it’s structurally different. Visibly it’s not that different. But what’s interesting is that the style changes that we’ve made to the Fiat 500 here will be brought back to the European version. So the European version will actually follow the U.S. version.

Forbes: We were talking earlier about pushing too fast…There are a lot of rumblings that you’re getting out there with the Fiat product before the dealer network’s even set. Do you have any concerns about moving too fast with the Fiat brand in particular?

To be honest everything is matched to production. I’ve got people clamoring to have cars now as I ramp up production. That car, that plant in Toluca (Mexico) is designed to serve three masters, the U.S. – actually four masters, five masters. It’s supposed to deal with the U.S., with Canada, with Mexico, with Brazil, and with China….We’ve had to make sure that we can manage – it’s not because we haven’t cared. We have, but we had to make sure that the dealers had enough time to build the facilities. So you know, hopefully we’ll have – not hopefully, but I think we expect to have an adequate number of dealerships out there within probably the second quarter. And then we’ll continue to fill this out. Canada is a huge draw for the car because of the European origin of the population….There’s a lot of Italians that live in Canada that know the car, historically, and they want to get it. So we’ve got to be careful; you know, we’re not going to make two million cars a year here. The capacity of the system is about 120, 130,000 vehicles a year and I need to be able to satisfy everybody, so I’m glad that Laura (Soave, Fiat’s North American head) has timed this the way she has. Demand for 2011 is not going to be an issue in the U.S. I think we have enough steam behind us. The important thing is to keep on rejuvenating and keeping that product line fresh.

Forbes: Tell me about your plans for Alfa Romeo in the U.S.

Look, I’ve been in this business now – in Fiat — for seven years. Every time I talk to somebody they tell me, you know, Alfa is just a wonderful brand. Well, Alfa’s been a money loser inside Fiat now since I’ve been around. They’re exactly the opposite of what we are institutionally; they over-promise and under-deliver every year. And the problem is it’s a great brand with a long history. I’m not sure if it ever really made any money. Even before Fiat ownership I’m not sure it was a great deal. But it always had this sexy – it raced Formula One — I mean it’s got this incredible appeal which goes back, you know, to the time they used to be on the racetrack, and it’s the embodiment of a lot of things which are typically Italian; sportiness, lightweight, and everything else. And what happened is that when Fiat bought them back in the end of ’86 we Fiatized Alfa. Fiat was front-wheel drive; Alfa was rear wheel drive. So now all the Alfas are front-wheel drive. And we put Fiat engines inside the Alfas, and Alfa started losing more and more of its DNA as a car company.

And of all the things that we had to play with since 2004, you know, I kept saying if I can get to 300,000 vehicles I’ll be happy because it’s a re-launch of the brand. We were selling over 100,000 cars in Europe. We have done two significant things since then; we’ve launched the Mito, which is a B segment car. And then we launched the Julietta, the C segment car last year. These are true Alfas, both of them. I mean they have the right engines, the handling, everything else. The real opportunity for us is to try and take this architectural development that we’ve done in the U.S. with the C-segment Dodge sedan coming out next year and using that basic architecture to develop the next evolution of Alfa Romeo and really turn it into a global brand.

We need Chrysler to get that done because we need to share the cost of development of an architecture with them. So without Chrysler, to be honest, Alfa Romeo would have been a nearly impossible task because the cost…would have been prohibitive. So we had to find a partner to do it with. We could have found it over time but the fact that we had access to Chrysler; it benefited Chrysler tremendously because they could also reduce the cost of the investment, but we needed a guy to do it with and Chrysler is the guy. And so the future is pretty good. Strangely enough, I actually think that Alfa will have, at least initially, will have a better success story in the U.S. than it will in Europe. Simply because – I’ll tell you why, because a lot of people know Alfa here in the U.S. because of “The Graduate.” But there’s a history there which I think we need to go revive, and I think we can come back into Europe and play a much stronger hand in Europe once we have an established U.S. base.

Forbes: Will the Fiat brand also share Chrysler’s small- and mid-sized (C and D) engineering platforms?

Potentially yes although the way in which Fiat plays in that segment is to be defined. Because Fiat’s presence in the C segment historically in Europe has not been a great success to be honest. Much more by Chrysler and Lancia than by Fiat itself. That’s a much better combination because all the Chryslers are coming to Europe as Lancias. Every Chrysler car that we have, if you go to the Geneva Auto Show at the beginning of March, you will see what you buy here as a Chrysler 300, as a Town & Country, as a 200, you will see them all in Europe under the Lancia badge; with different names but it will be all American made.

Forbes: How many are you talking about exporting then?

I actually don’t have the exact number for next year but I’m going back by memory but it’s got to be over 30,000 in Europe that are coming out of it. In total we’re selling more than 50,000 cars the first year out.

Forbes: So what about the other 20,000 then?

These are cars that are being rebadged out of Dodge for Fiat. For example, the Dodge Journey is going to be sold as a Fiat Fremont. Those are the kind of blood transfusions that we’re carrying out. Genetic rebadging, that’s what it’s called.

Forbes: How much work is there to rebadge an American Chrysler as a Lancia for Europe?

Europe has very much of a CO2 bias, a carbon dioxide bias. It impacts on taxation; it impacts on the cost of the vehicle. This has not been a big focus in the United States. I mean mileage has been much more important than CO2. So even the adaptation of architectures to ensure that we actually leverage our know-how in the U.S. and make it competitive in Europe is a big issue, so that – I’ll give you an example. The Dodge Journey that’s going over is a very heavy car. That heaviness will imply that its CO2 emissions are not where we would want them to be. If we have had any influence at all in product development it’s the issue that we continue to lightweight the architectures. And when you lightweight them hopefully we’ll start getting some benefits in CO2 emissions, which are crucial for Europe.

Forbes: So you’re doing this now?

Yeah we’re doing this in all the products that are coming out of here, both out of Europe into the U.S. and out of the U.S. into Europe…This has become a more difficult question because to the extent that we are now over four million cars together we need to start having a view that says I look at the world as being an open playground. So if I want to be in Asia, what does this car need to do in order to be in Asia? I can no longer do something which is just U.S. specific. I need to see the other card; I need to see what else I can do. It has to do with this capital consciousness that I can’t keep on reinventing the wheel. Every time you do a C segment I’ve got to be able to leverage the hell out of it.

One of the things that we had to change in the 500 was the location of the fuel tank. Now, when you look at the size of the car you say well this is pretty stupid, why didn’t you put it in the right place to begin with? Because Europeans think that the right place is in a different place than Americans.

Forbes: So is this expensive to change?

Oh hell yes. I’ll give you an example: the Chrysler 200 convertible. The car, it exists, so the architecture existed. We just put a new set of headlights in the car when we redesigned the car, among all the other changes that we spent. European headlights required a modification just to meet European standards. When they test the lights in Europe they look at a different area of (light) coverage than the Americans do. Don’t ask me why. But they do, and there’s no solution, there’s no lamp that can be designed to be at the same time European and American standards. The difference is worth between 15 and 20 million bucks.

Forbes: Really?

Yep. The headlights and the location of the fog lamp in the back of the car. The fog lamp cannot be put in the same location in Europe as they put it here. By the way, this creates complexity that you wouldn’t believe. It would be wonderful for all of us if you can find convergence; If we can agree that a headlight needs to look there. Just there. Doesn’t it look simple to you?

Forbes: So how much joint engineering is actually happening between Chrysler and Fiat?

Tons. There’s nothing that happens at one place that the other place doesn’t – I mean in any one week there’s anywhere between 30 to 100 people that are flying back and forth. The head of product development for Fiat, Harald Wester, sits on the product committee here in the U.S., and we’re going to start interfacing with the product committee on the European side.

Forbes: When Daimler owned Chrysler, they had a private plane that went back and forth several times a week.

I can’t afford a plane. There’s a point in time sometime in the future where that may be required when the level of interface gets so high that we need actually to have that kind of mobility. I don’t see it as being a farfetched idea. I think it may work, but so far it works well with emails, videoconferencing, and sharing of all the data we can get.

Forbes: The U.S. government doesn’t like private planes.

As long as they’re the financer, forget about ownership.

Forbes: Now, when you have Fiat here, you have Alpha here, you have your own four brands, that’s a lot of mouths to feed. How do you avoid spreading yourselves too thin like GM did?

Well the other side of this is Volkswagen. Volkswagen has got Volkswagen, it’s got Audi, it’s got SEAT, it’s got Skoda, it’s got Bentley; last time I checked Volkswagen was really doing really well.

Look, somebody asked me whether we thought that we had too many brands. The answer is Jeep is Jeep. I mean Jeep will never be a car brand ever. It can’t be, not when the origin of the Jeep is the Willys. I mean let’s be honest. We spend a lot of time purifying that brand and turning it into sort of the SUV on a global scale. It’s the one that deserves to be treated as the SUV. I can’t sell a Jeep Charger. There are things that don’t cross. And Ram is a truck brand. It sells pickups. This is a NAFTA issue. Once I go somewhere else, pickups are not that popular. Right? Europeans can’t drive pickups. There’s no use inventing sort of this merger of brands. They existed when I arrived. We thought about merging Dodge and Chrysler and we would have lost a lot of market share. Just think about what happened here. This company decided to have two minivans. A Town & Country for Chrysler and a Caravan for Dodge. If I merged them I would have been forced to go to one van. I would have lost a huge amount of market share because in order to come up with one minivan. You need to have a substitute for the other brand. You need to have another people carrier.

Forbes: I’ve heard you talking about different kind of people mover, right?

But it has to be a people mover. I’ve got to be able to hit that minivan market with something other than that minivan, but that satisfies the requirements of a minivan user.

Forbes: This vehicle would still be built on a minivan architecture?

There’s no such thing as a minivan architecture. You know, we’re beyond this, right? Understand this. The compact Dodge that’s coming out in January; that architecture will be the same architecture that will drive the replacement of the Jeep Compass. We need to develop these architectures in a way that effectively translate themselves into relatively large levels of flexibility, but we can do this now.

Forbes: So what’s this about building a Maserati based on the Jeep Grand Cherokee? Why do that?

Why? For the same reason that Porsche sold the Cayenne. I don’t know why Porsche can do it and we can’t do it. Look, that Grand Cherokee platform that we have deserves a Ferrari engine. It’s that good of an architecture.

Forbes: Dieter Zetsche (ceo of Daimler) says that’s because it’s really a Mercedes platform (dating back to the DaimlerChrysler merger)

You know what, if I called the head of product development here and you told him that it was a Mercedes he would just kill you. I’ll tell you why, because it started off as a Mercedes platform. Dieter left here in 2006. That architecture wasn’t industrialized until 2009. In three years in this business, the world changes. The engine that’s in that car (Chrysler’s new Pentastar V6) didn’t even exist. The transmission that’s going into that car next year didn’t exist. All the suspensions were redone, all the work on the inside was redone, everything. This is nonsense.

In the end, do you think it will have been worth saving Chrysler? Is that already clear to you or is that still an open question?

Yeah, I think it was clear to me in 2009 when I showed up as the CEO. I wouldn’t have done this for 19 months unless it was worth it. Not just for me, I think all the people – a lot of the people in here have given this place everything they’ve got so we owe it to them.

Throatwarbler posted:

Well, some of those things are a bit troubling. I think someone (Autoblog?) pointed out that GM is basically running on the fumes left over from Bob Lutz's time right now - every good car they have right now came from him, there's nothing in the pipeline for at least a few years and the Impala is going to be in production in 2014.

Let's just say that if you asked Marchionne where the engine was in any of his cars he'd beat the poo poo out of you.

Cream_Filling posted:

And the question is, in the worst-case scenario that Chrysler doesn't succeed, what is his tolerance for losing money to the Chrysler side of the business before pulling up stakes and gutting the company or bailing like Daimler did?

Cream_Filling posted:

Preoptopus posted:

I just realized, imagine getting a small ding in that door.....

travisray2004 posted:

Wow, thank you for introducing me to that site. Every observation is spot on.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

The G-Wagen point is possibly the most retarded point in the history of points.

Morphix posted:

Why? It's a 6-figure automobile that I absolutely love the outside of, but whenever I actually look at it closer or compare it to say a Range Rover, it's loving atrocious what MB is trying to sell in terms of features. Or are you upset because the G-Wagon is supposed to be some ubar-utilitarian man vehicle and the idea of someone making fun of a terrible design decision is an affront to the cars manliness factor?

Dr JonboyG posted:

Embargoes are down for the new McLaren MP4-12C:

Evo: http://www.evo.co.uk/carreviews/evocarreviews/263737/new_mclaren_mp412c_review.html (includes Chris Harris video)

Car: http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/Drives/Search-Results/First-drives/McLaren-MP4-12C-supercar-CAR-review-2011/

http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/Drives/Search-Results/First-drives/McLaren-MP4-12C-watch-CARs-video-review-here/

Autocar: http://www.autocar.co.uk/CarReviews/FirstDrives/McLaren-MP4-12C-3.8-V8/255434/

Autocar video with Jenson Button: http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-video/mclaren-mp4-12c-driven-jenson-button-video/

I do not understand how people say it's boring to look at and doesn't look special in the way a 458 does, but then I don't like Ferrari and I do like McLaren. Looks like the car has moved the game on from the 458, makes me wonder what they're going to do for their next car, which will be a replacement for the mighty F1. The really interesting one will be the final car, which is going to be aimed at the 911 and be a car you can drive every day (and possibly afford, too).

InitialDave posted:

I don't think a G-Wagen needs stupid bodykits or bling wheels, true enough. I'd view the sweet spot as being the mechanicals and exterior of a challenge truck combined with the full-luxury interior accoutrements.

quote:

Look, that Grand Cherokee platform that we have deserves a Ferrari engine.

dissss posted:

Does the European model even have cupholders? If it does I'll bet they're only there because the US market demanded them anyway.

Throatwarbler posted:

Here's my theory on stuff like the Hummer and the G-wagon. They are originally designed as specialized fleet(military or otherwise) vehicles. There is virtually no civillian market for them, and the total fleet volume isn't enough to warrant a capital intensive production line. According to wikipedia the G-wagon line rolls out about 5,000 units per year. So basically they are all "hand made" trucks, because it would be too expensive to set up a modern automated production line. Whatever their actual unit production cost, which must be high but probably not $100k per, MB rekons it can at least sell a few a year to rappers and movie stars who for whatever reason want to sit in an uncomfortable body-on-frame box held up by 2 live axles, so they throw in some minimal creature comforts and price it accordingly. They know very few people are going to buy it and they don't care, because it's all just a sunk cost at this point.

Do any serious off-roaders actually buy them? I can't imagine why, since I'm pretty sure $100k can buy you a jeep with as many differentials as you want.

Throatwarbler posted:

Oh hey some meta car commercials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWy6A6bLSW0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkUdQtINflw

Dr JonboyG posted:

They say the new Range Rover is actually a better off roader now than a Defender, on the same tyres.

Throatwarbler posted:

Mercedes isn't even trying to pretend its anything else.

InitialDave posted:

The trouble is, that's one of those "it depends" statements. On certain terrain it's true, but given a different scenario, it's not.

travisray2004 posted:

I just saw this post and oh my. I have generally hated most of the newer Dodge commercials but this is fantastic. When the Charger revs towards the end of the first video, it sounds like an orgasm.

oxbrain posted:

No it doesn't. It sounds like a sound engineer played around with a recording of a v8.

InitialDave posted:

If they're going to be so smug about the "real cars for real drivers" attitude they've got going on there, let's see the manual shifter in the thing.

InitialDave posted:

If they're going to be so smug about the "real cars for real drivers" attitude they've got going on there, let's see the manual shifter in the thing.

InitialDave posted:

If they're going to be so smug about the "real cars for real drivers" attitude they've got going on there, let's see the manual shifter in the thing.

Morphix posted:

Why? It's a 6-figure automobile that I absolutely love the outside of, but whenever I actually look at it closer or compare it to say a Range Rover, it's loving atrocious what MB is trying to sell in terms of features. Or are you upset because the G-Wagon is supposed to be some ubar-utilitarian man vehicle and the idea of someone making fun of a terrible design decision is an affront to the cars manliness factor?

oribiasi posted:

Anyone else see the new Camaro ZL1 due out in 2012? I am a big fan of the car and wow the new model is exactly what I wanted, with an upgraded interior etc. Check it out:

http://www.autoblog.com/photos/2012-chevrolet-camaro-zl1-chicago-2011/

And the official Chevrolet images:

http://www.chevrolet.com/camaro-zl1/#image8

Standard is a 550 HP surpercharged V8. Sick.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

I also think that the idea of putting cupholders in it at all is totally loving dumb but americans am i right

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

I also think that the idea of putting cupholders in it at all is totally loving dumb but americans am i right

Imperador do Brasil posted:

You'll never see the hedge you end up on the wrong side of.

Morphix posted:

All I'm saying is, I think MB is loving retarded with that vehicle. It it was priced better, or better equipped, people might actually be interested in picking it up. Granted if god was real they'd be mandated to remove all those awful chrome accents before production and just leave them as an optional extra.

kimbo305 posted:

If they're selling all the units they're making, that's probably reason enough to keep it as-is.

Coredump posted:

Don't you mean people in the US? American's encompass people from two different continents, surely all of them don't think that way.

Cream_Filling posted:

And the question is, in the worst-case scenario that Chrysler doesn't succeed, what is his tolerance for losing money to the Chrysler side of the business before pulling up stakes and gutting the company or bailing like Daimler did?

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

I agree with all of this which is why I think complaining about the cupholder is dumb as poo poo when it's like 9 millionth on the list of things that are wrong with the vehicle.