Weeding out the faux Mopar crowd
When the takeover of Chrylser Group by Cerberus was announced, with the various promises by Cerberus regarding the future of the company, the return of the Pentastar, and such, there was a general mood of elation across America and Canada, as the people realized that a great American icon was to return, freed of its abusive masters.
There were exceptions.
With the Mopar crowd there had, since 1998, appeared a number of Fauxpar freaks. The Fauxpar folk loved the German influence, believed that anything born in Germany must be better than what mere foolish Americans could do, and thought Mercedes could do no wrong. So Mercedes quality was lower than Chrysler? That was because Mercedes was spending all its money and attention on Chrysler. Horrible! what Chrysler was doing to poor Mercedes, giving them $10 billion and taking on all sorts of debts while providing huge economies of scale and royalties and… well, never mind. Let’s also not mention the fact that Mercedes’ quality ratings were already below Chrysler’s, on average, in 1998; the difference was not as stark then because the S Class was still doing so well.
(I need to separate out the Fauxpars from the optimists. The Fauxpar lovers didn’t care about Chrysler until Mercedes bought it. The optimists hoped Mercedes would help Chrysler.)
The Fauxpar people were happy to give credit for the Hemi to Germany. Americans could never squeeze 340 horsepower out of 5.7 liters; Germans could do it easily (indeed, German automakers DO tend to push more power out of a cube than Americans do; but then, it costs far more.) Never mind that Toyota eventually got 380 horsepower out of the same size. Toyota’s run by Japanese people, who are almost as superior as Germans.
It was hard to argue with the Fauxpar crowd. The suspension in the LX series really was far better than that of the LH in terms of performance and, as tuned in the Charger, in terms of feel, too; and its basic rear suspension design was obviously taken from the E-Class. Stability control was also credited to Mercedes, though Hyundai, Toyota, GM, Ford, and just about everyone else also uses it. Any quality gains were of course due to Mercedes’ kind intervention, even though they couldn’t get their own cars up to snuff.
Meanwhile, Chrysler was being demolished. Suppliers were abused and cost-cut into bankruptcy; while before they were allowed to share in any proceeds from cost savings, so that if the supplier could save $20 on building the car they were allowed to keep, say, $2 extra profit for themselves, that was considered too generous and inefficient by Mercedes, so it was kicked out. The result was most likely greater overall costs; parts costs went down but quality of parts sometimes followed, and overall design efficiencies were lost. That particular program had saved $20 billion for Chrysler by its height. The bad feelings will take time to heal, if they ever do. Dealer relations were also severely damaged by a hack sent in by Mercedes, who as his penalty for practically destroying dealer relations and hurting marketing was given a Mercedes dealer franchise. Factories were closed, costs slashed, engineers kicked out, Brian Nesbitt given walking papers along with anyone who dared speak up against Mercedes. Many retired because they just couldn’t take the slow, methodical, arrogant people from that other company.
Thus, when Chrysler was released, it made the day of a lot of people, even those who supported the deal to begin with. When the deal was announced, the press - mostly, the people who were telling us how much Chrysler needed Mercedes to survive, right until the day Cerberus and Daimler reached an agreement - immediately started talking about how awful the Daimler occupation had been. It was hypocracy of the first order, but nearly everyone was rejoicing to some degree. Except for that small crowd of Fauxpars, the people who hated Chrysler but bought one because of the German engineering.
The Fauxpars love to talk about the K-cars, forgetting that they were great little cars when they were first brought out - highly profitable small American cars that rode well, accelerated well-for-the-time, got decent mileage, and were pretty durable for the most part. They love to talk about how awful those LH cars were. Whenever they compare, it’s to the present day - the Reliant 2.2 that can’t get out of its own way, with its 0-60 of 14 seconds. Y’know, that wasn’t bad when it was made… and though the K series was neglected for far too long in the end, even in the last year they were making Shadows, they were competitive.
The Fauxpars are sad now that Mercedes is leaving. If Chrysler does well, they might be able to claim it was because of Mercedes’ influence, but it seems unlikely anyone will believe them. There’s been a clear death spiral at Chrysler Group since 2001, and it might even now be too late; there has been too much taken out of the company and too little put back in. Even the popular PT Cruiser is being cancelled for lack of a factory to build it in (or because the execs still can’t bear to think it was a success after they said it was a flash in the pan?). But the Fauxpars have been claiming that Chrysler needs Mercedes, and if Chrysler succeeds, well…
I for one won’t miss the Fauxpars. Yes, it was nice of them to respond favorably to the “German Engineering” ad campaigns; I guess someone had to. But I’ve been painted Mopar blue for too many years to want a bunch of newcomers hanging around and dissing the cars I grew up with, drove, and loved. As the Mopar fold hopefully grows and thrives with new and returning owners, the Fauxpars will fade away and only be heard now and than, sarcastically talking about how all Mopars are rubbish and pointing to decade-old head gasket failures as proof.
