The three-headed dog of Chrysler (updated)

Cerberus has apparently taken its image as the three-headed dog guarding the entrance to Hell (from the demons within) to heart, as they’ve put three different heads in charge of Chrysler.

At the very top is Bob Nardelli, who has taken a bunch of his old pals from GE and Home Depot and installed them in various spots; his past showed a preference for moving production to China, stripping out product and service quality, and slashing prices. So far we’ve seen the first and last of those - prices are being cut by bundling more freebies with the cars, and many parts purchases are indeed moving to China, with India being established as a tertiary engineering base after the U.S. and China. That said, he was also known for yelling at employees and being less than easy to get along with, while at Chrysler he is now known for listening patiently and trusting the opinions of those with experience and knowledge. He’s a tough one to figure out, but his pals seem to have kept their predilections for cheap-labor outsourcing.

The next head is Jim Press, whose tenure at Toyota was marked by hounding the massive Japanese automaker into having a substantial U.S. engineering presence which essentially customized Toyotas for the American market, not unlike the work of the Australians in getting Valiants into shape for the land down under. Press’ efforts, if other writers are accurate, brought us Scion, Lexus, the American version of the Camry, and the Avalon, not to mention the new Tundra, which if nothing else is giving American automakers fits - and that’s before the heavy duty and diesel models appear. It’s hard not to respect Jim Press, and not just because Toyota earned its success in the United States with likable vehicles that generally get better mileage than their peers, generally appear at the top of quality charts, and generally satisfy their customers. He’s just a likable guy - he seems much more natural than the average auto exec, more approachable and more human, less tightly scripted, and far, far, far less arrogant.

Finally, we have Tom LaSorda, who you just have to respect for the way he’s brought manufacturing plant technology ahead of nearly all competitors, while simultaneously going back to the future in plant management. The use of empowered work teams is so counter to anything Detroit has done lately, (aside from Chrysler in the early-to-mid 1990s, of course), and so counter to the Mercedes method of “Men in White,” that you just have to admire him for getting it done.

These are the three men in charge, and there’s bound to be some real, elemental conflict. Press wants quality above all else - quality being defined, presumably, as nothing going wrong for the owners. I think Press would be happy to lose money five years in a row if he could get reliability to where he wants it, knowing that he’d be paid back in profits when Chrysler didn’t need discounts or fancy styling to get customers. He quite probably wants Chrysler to be the default choice, as Honda and Toyota are now.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is Bob Nardelli, who has pretty much proven he likes short-term profits above all else. Perhaps he’s changed now, but we have no evidence of that other than numerous speeches, and I for one don’t believe what people say if I haven’t seen what they do yet.

It’s hard to say where Tom LaSorda, the one guy who actually came from Chrysler, fits into all this. I think he’d probably rather work with Jim Press than Bob Nardelli, but for all I know he was relieved to have someone else take over. Not everyone wants to be highly visible. LaSorda seemed to get along with the Stuttgart crew, and he seems to get along with Cerberus crew. Is he very friendly and flexible, or a yes-man, or just a smart production guy who minds his own store? That’s for those who know him to say.

It’s hard to make all the right moves when you have three heads. Hopefully Chrysler will find some synergy, but at this point it’s probably too early for those of us on the outside to know what’ll happen next.