Fiat to take over Chrysler??

Remember the comments about Japanese cars as rice burners? Now its Chrysler's turn. Spaghetti Cars, Dago Dodge, Pavarotti Cruiser, Pasta Van?

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What kind of reputation do FIAT cars have these days? I don't think I've seen them in the US at all, but they were not so uncommon in Australia.

BTW -- talking of "rice burners" -- I heard two guys talking a few weeks ago about what their next cars might be, and one commented that US-made cars are gradually catching up to the Japanese.

Perce

IMO Fiat cars are crappy, they have more to gain. If Daimler says their 19% share of Chrysler is worthless, why don't they give those shares to those buying a new Chrysler. "Buy a Chrysler and get part of the company".

Die Buschtrommeln von Pete E. Kruzer ließen verlauten ...

FIAT will gain more out of that deal, because it opens the doors to the US market, while Chrysler will gain access to technology of how to build those small fuel efficent cars. The latter is not that difficult to do, but probably Chrysler has too long ignored the fact, that such cars are needed.

FIAT has a reputation of building crappy cars, which I think goes back to the 1970s. They have improved, but I still wouldn't buy one. However ... Alfa Romeo is also a part of the FIAT group and they build state of the art sports cars with a charisma just like the Corvette or the Ferraris (which btw also belongs to FIAT).

One wouldn't think it would be terribly difficult, but there isn't much evidence Chrysler has been able to figure it out.

I think that reputation goes a lot further back than the 1970s, and was well-deserved at least into the 90s. Don't really know what they're like now...

It's funny. Here, in Italy, we think the same about Chrysler's cars.

Bye, Akira

I don't believe that Fiat has sold many cars in the US since the

1970's. Back then, they had the X19, the 128, and the Strata just to name a few.

I know that there were many unhappy souls when Fiat took over Ferrari. I think it had gotten to the point where Ferrari could no longer survive on their own.

-Kirk

Chrysler had Italian ties (and I don't mean Iacocca). They owned part (15% I believe) of Maserati (and had the "Chrysler's TC by Maserati" with a Maserati-designed cylinder head for the 2.2 L turbo 4). They had an agreement to distribute Alfa-Romeos through their dealerships (which didn't last long). Chrysler owned Lamborghini. And back in the 1980s, Iacocca's idea of a "Global Motors" had VW as its first European choice, with Fiat next.

This makes more sense then anything else that's been proposed. They have virtually no overlap in markets or in their product lines. Fiat makes small cars, Chrysler makes trucks and big cars. Fiat is almost exclusively European with no American presence, Chrysler is mostly North American with very little in the way of a European sales network. This doesn't fix Chrysler's redundant dealer network and it doesn't fix it's UAW problem so this probably won't work but it's better than the GM deal.

Die Buschtrommeln von Joe Pfeiffer ließen verlauten ...

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It probably comes down to what the consumer asks for. I regularly travel to Tennessee for several year now (I have friends there). During last years "era of 5-bucks-4-daaa-gallon" everybody was asking for more fuel efficient cars and most of the people were seeing those dealers that sold hybrid cars. Now that the price for the gallon has come down again, everybody suffers from amnesia and is happy to fill up their gas-guzzlers. One can't blame Chrysler to offer the product the market seems to ask for.

FIAT has learned the lesson and is building reliable cars now. However ... when it comes to the car one is driving, I think one is making decissions mostly based on guts, feelings ... whatever. Those feelings are above what seems to be "common sense". And why not? I mean it feels better to drive a car, that - the first time you saw it - fell in love with. Which happened to my when I went to the Chrysler dealer to pick up my Neon in 2001 and for the first time saw the PT. Two years later that lipstick-searching-b**ch that crashed into my parked car ...

That's the one and only reason, why I wouldn't buy a FIAT ... :-)

I'd say that both manufactures have quite a bad reputation here in Italy. But FIAT's quality has been improved greatly over the last 5 years.

Bye,

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A mutual friend of ours pointed out that they made a GREAT small car by all the quantitative measures (the Caliber). Better acceleration numbers, MPG numbers, skidpad numbers, etc. than most of the competition. And yet when he drove it, the total package just didn't come off well. Kinda like the Spirit R/T blew the doors off the Taurus SHO, but when people drove one the reaction was "ick, a high-powered K-car." of course the Spririt R/T's lab-experiment cam drive that ate a belt every 10k miles didn't help either....

I agree. As someone said 90s have been bad years for FIAT, but recently it has improved greatly.

Cheap-looking and feeling interior turns a lot of people off. Droning CVT, engines that are much less smooth and noisier than Toyota and Honda... And who buys an economy car for skidpan numbers?

Put a nice Honda or Toyota engine and tranny in it and get someone from Honda or Toyota to redesign the interior...

Wait, why not buy a Honda or Toyota and get reliability and resale value too?

Well, the Taurus was a size class larger. And yes, a V6 is smoother and usually quieter than a 4. The Taurus competition was Intrepid, Vision, Concorde.

Of course, that was indeed all Iaccoca...

Because some of us won't ever buy those brands, and their "reliability" is no better than anyone else's when you cut away the mythology and stick to facts.

Maybe in the rarefied air of car magazines, but in the real world they were as close head-to-head competitors as the two companies had.

Especially THAT particular 4, which was on the hairy edge of being a prototype race engine. Over 100 hp/liter in 1990 wasn't anything to sneeze at... but it wasn't very refined, either. No balance shafts like the 2.5 had, and enough power surge when the turbo boost built up that it was like a kick in the back. Sounds like my kind of car... but then I'm a few standard deviations off the mean and proud of it. ;-) I'm the guy that goes to a car show and ignores the Ferraris, BMWs, AMGs, and Lamborghinis to go drool over a bench-seat Hemi Coronet that probably sold for $4000 new and was expected to last 5 years.

Nope, those weren't in production at that time. The AA body (Spirit/Acclaim/LeBaron sedan) was the Chrysler competition for the Taurus *until* the LH bodies came out. The simple fact is that Chrysler's and Ford's size lineups didn't really match exactly then, or later. When the LH cars came out, the were significantly bigger than a Taurus, yet were still lumped in the same class. That's the whole problem with "size classes" anyway. They really don't mean much of anything.

Ehi, why are you posting there too?

For the people on this NG, please check this 3d

I don't know if Google makes translation also for NGs, but we are discussing the same thing. :)

Getix ha scritto:

Bec it's interesting to understand what Americans think about this MoU! :-)

If they can understand italian or google translate ( sometimes the latter is the most difficult, also if they don't speak italian :-))

Bye,

Fiat has been into small cars for years. When I was stationed at a mountain top communications site 60 miles outside of Naples in the late 70's, it seemed like every other car was a Fiat. Lots of "cinquecento's or 500's. Very small car, incredible gas mileage and you won't believe how the Neapolitans packed an entire family into one.

Then again,

F ix I t A gain T omorrow

is a hard reputation to lose.