What will stay and what will go?
This is just my opinion based on current reports. There might be more new vehicles to replace the ones I’m counting as living. My guess is that the Caliber, Patriot, and Compass might all be dropped and Belvedere closed when the China-cars come online, unless they replace them all with entry-level cars or some new segments - but I think future cars will come from cheap-labor markets. (Though the falling dollar might ameliorate that - the question is, are people chasing low costs or following dogma?)
Note that if we look at the cuts the following way, they don’t seem so bad. I’m also expecting a Scrambler pickup, so Dakota might disappear to make room for that. Durango and Aspen might both go away if every dealership has all brands.
This leaves more than the normally stated 30 models, but of course Chally isn’t on sale yet. Your comments on revisions would be appreciated.
Most scary to me is a rumor that more engineers are going to be laid off. What’s the point in flexible manufacturing if they won’t pay for cars to be engineered and built?
Dodge
| 1 | Avenger | In the process of being redesigned from the ground up | Living |
| 2 | Caliber | Too similar to Patriot, Journey; retail sales slow | Up for grabs |
| 3 | Caliber SRT-4 | Life depends on profits and Caliber’s survival | Unknown |
| 4 | Charger | Not going anywhere; staple big car | Living |
| 5 | Charger SRT-8 | Being updated in a year or two; probably profitable | Living |
| 6 | Challenger | New! | Living |
| 7 | Challenger SRT-8 | Seems successful so far | Living |
| 8 | Journey | New. I’m not as optimistic as they are. | Living |
| 9 | Magnum | Fate sealed. | Dead |
| 10 | Viper | Fate reportedly sealed as of 2011. Hard to keep it on top. | Dying |
| 11 | Caravan | One of the company’s best sellers; needs interior restyling, suspension tuning | Living |
| 12 | Ram 1500 | You must be joking | Living |
| 13 | Ram 2500/3500 | Still big sales | Living |
| 14 | Durango | Slow sales; needs considerable work; obsolete factory | In doubt |
| 15 | Dakota | Slow sales; weight reduction and re-niche-ing was planned | In doubt |
| 16 | Nitro | I suspect it’ll get the axe - just not popular enough to keep when all stores sell all brands | In doubt |
Chrysler
| 17 | Crossfire SRT6 | Linked to Crossfire | Dying |
| 18 | PT Cruiser | Could still be saved if Journey bombs, since it uses the same line | Dying |
| 19 | Sebring Sedan | Too low-end to be a Chrysler; could survive as just a Dodge | Could be dropped |
| 20 | Sebring Convertible | Best selling ragtop; name has considerable weight | Living |
| 21 | 300 | Base model drags down the reputation and duplicates Charger | In doubt |
| 22 | 300C | Iconic, popular, the only "real" Chrysler | Living |
| 23 | 300C SRT8 | Could go either way | In doubt |
| 24 | Aspen | Almost certain to go away; though I’d keep and rename it! | Dying |
| 25 | Pacifica | Already announced | Dying |
| 26 | Town & Country | Personally I’d keep this as a pure luxury minivan, one model, with full options and better sound insulation, smoother ride than the Dodge. My suspicion is they’ll keep trying to shift sales from Dodge to Chrysler. At least they should change the name, it’s so hard to type! | Living |
| 27 | PT Convertible | Already dead | Dead |
| 28 | Crossfire | Why? | Dying |
Jeep
| 29 | Patriot | Moderately successful but if they dropped it, they could close Belvedere | In doubt |
| 30 | Compass | Pretty much certain to get killed | Dying |
| 31 | Commander | Hasn’t been a huge success, though it should have done well | Dying |
| 32 | Grand Cherokee | A Jeep staple that’s done poorly since the redesign, it’ll probably survive | Living |
| 33 | Wrangler | Really has to be kept | Living |
| 34 | Liberty | Once a Jeep staple, it overlaps the Patriot to a degree, and removing both it and the Nitro would allow Cerberus to shut another factory. Isn’t that the way you rescue an American icon? | Not sure |
Yea, um for Jeep, I would cut it down to simply the Wrangler, Cherokee(current Liberty) and Grand Cherokee(w/optional 3rd row seating). They would be the only SUV’s in the whole company.
Chrysler I think should try the three car thing like BMW used to do. Starting at the low end a Concorde, mid range 300 and top of the line Imperial. Sebring convertible and a new Pacifica based on the LY would round out the lineup.
Dodge I think can continue on as it is just upgrade the interiors, suspensions and replace the engines(except Hemi engines).
Just to be nitpicky, it’s Belvidere, not Belvedere. It may seem weird because of the Plymouth Belvedere, but…
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Belvidere,+IL,+United+States+of+America&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title
I live about 30 miles from Belvidere and know people that work there, not to mention I have a love affair with the Patriot. Homegrown, offroad guts, good fuel economy, and that classic Jeep styling wins me over like no other.
Building it in China is not acceptable either.
eh, the caliber stunk any way! why did they use hyundai designed engines anyway? and a nissan cvt? two horrable combos! put the 3.3 (or new 3.0) in to the patriot… restyle the grand cherkee to be boxy like the commander, offer 7 passenger seating with a wheel base of 115 inches (or so) and drop the 3.7 v6 NOW in all Jeeps, and put the 4.0 in its place!
Dodge should be preformance orientated! drop the troublesome mercedes designed 5spd in ALL there cars and replace it with the 545RFE! Move the Durango onto the Grand Cherokee platform, only offer V8’s in the Dodge, and the Hybrid of course. Kill the nitro, redesign the Caliber to be a sedan and change the name to Dart?(it would work with the line up). Where is the Diesel Minivan???? and the SRT Version? we WANT both!!!!! and on the Minivans the suspension should be tuned like the VW Routan! and put the same interior as the VW!
Re-do the viper again! this time put the 392ci HEMI supercharged in it and lower the prices to Vette teritory! and dont make the avanger butt ugly! DROP THE 2.7V6, it sucks anyway!
and make Chrysler the uber luxo bmw, mercedes, lexus, infinity, cadilac, lincoln fighter that it once was!
Chrysler historically did not go up against Lincoln, Caddy, etc., instead fielding Imperial to do that - with notable exceptions (Chrysler 300 letter series).
well Chrysler needs to be uber luxo, to steal sales away from Mercedes. thats just a sugestion. and the 300 could easly go against a lexus or cadillac. but do you know anything about the SRT minivan? i saw it on motortrend’s website of a flamred grandcaravan with SRT style rims off Charger, no roof rack, hood scoop, a meaner lookin grille. i have pix if you want them.
Well a lot of this is going to hinge on how fast they can consolidate dealerships. My guess is that it is going to take a long time.
Just looking at the current lineup you can see how much Daimler ruined this company. Once Chrysler was on the leading edge of design and technology. Now they aren’t even second fiddle. More like tenth or twelfth fiddle.
They are not going to get rid of any engines until the arrival of the Phoenix engines so the 2.7 and 3.7 are going to be around a bit longer. They need to dump all of the 4 speed automatics. I at least give the current management credit for realizing they need to completely overhaul some things quickly such as interiors and the Avenger/Sebring.
Compass, Aspen, Commander, and maybe Nitro need to be killed as soon as possible. As soon as a probably Chinese based small sedan is ready then Caliber needs to go. Liberty and Patriot can stay. I still think there is more room at Jeep for more than just Wranglers. Viper is probably going to go but it has more than done it’s share during it’s lifetime.
Chrysler needs to go no higher than the current loaded 300C price level, except for SRT models. Imperial is a terrible idea. PT can also go since there will probably be a Chrysler version of the Journey. The dealership where I work got their first Journeys this weekend and I think they look pretty good. Hopefully they will sell good.
Dakota probably needs to go in it’s current form. It’s just too close the fullsize trucks in price. A better option would be the MD80 concept. Smaller trucks are going to be a big market in the future and the MD80 would be perfect. Speaking of small trucks, Jeep either needs the JT concept (with a diesel) or the Gladiator. Grand Cherokee needs to be reworked along with Durango and possibly made on the same chassis.
The new 2009 Ram is a step in the right direction. Makes the Ford look like a student science project. Unfortunately the whole truck market is probably going to be down big time this year.
dropin the 2.7 and the mercedes designed 5spd auto would realy help there reputation on quality.
It is low cost and dogma.
The pressure to cut costs is real, and may yet kill Chrysler. I hope not. But unless they get costs down, they can’t survive in the face of Toyota and Hyundai. Toyota is making 8 billion a year, while Chrysler is losing 8 billion. It can’t continue; and it seems Cerberus may be focusing on cutting too much, for example cutting one of the minivan models. That troubles me. They don’t have the option of getting government to subsidize costs (including health care) or new factories like the Asian brands (such as Mississippi and Alabama tax breaks for Nissan and Hyundai, Toyota in other states). Maybe Chinese production will be a solution.
Yet there are dangers that go beyond quality control. Current thought is dictating that building in China is the way to go. But, like the time when the sure bet was investing in Enron or dot.comes, few are stopping to think it through to where it ends. There are record sales today (see GM’s numbers for China), but that will come to an end. No American company is allowed to own what it invests in China. Everything has to be through a joint venture. My fear is that Chrysler will spend billions to get Chery into the position to manufacture quality, up to date cars, and then Chrysler (as well as all the other Western manufactureres) will get the boot by the Chinese government. As Forbes has reported, in just a few years China will be building 18 million cars a year, and exporting 2 million a year to the US. The growth and profits GM and other are talking about will be gone overnight, when China decides it doesn’t need the US companies anymore.
At that point, will Chrysler have been pared down so small it can only survive as part of a Chinese auto conglomerate? The alliance with Chery may be more dangerous than the one with Daimler-Benz. As nations, the US and Canada (and Mexico) have to decide if the domestic auto industries are vital to their national interests. I believe they are. I believe the good-paying jobs provided by domestic manufactureres are also vital to our nations. In my opinion, we need to have incentives for them to stay competitive. Tax incentives to keep factories here, or incnetives to build new ones in the non-union South. I know that is not what people want to hear. If Michigan wants to stop the bleeding of jobs, maybe it’s time to offer incentives to the Big Three to stay.
We may ahve to transition to a much smaller industry, one that sells American cars based on superior quality and technology rather than volume or price (what I mean is, if the 2015 Chrysler Imperial is truly as good as Mercedes or Rolls, it will have its niche much the way Rolex has its niche the volume Chinese producers can’t compete in; it doesn’t matter how strong the chinese makers are there will be a demand for the superior product).
This won’t be corporate welfare. Asian manufacturers are subsidized by their governments; unless we are prepared to ensure a level playing field we will lose in a battle of unequal trade with China. Unless we do that the reality will continue to dicatate to any smart CEO that he or she can either move to where the pay is $ .50 an hour, or go out of business.
We can’t expect Wall Street to make the best decision for our carmakers: they see only short term: that is, move to China. They don’t appreciate that China spells long term disaster.
Jeremy hit the dangers of moving production to China perfectly. It starts as a joint venture, they master the manufacturing and technology and then the partner company is booted out. Then the joint product is sent to the US and the clones are sold domestically and in third world markets as China products.
What isn’t going to help either is the anti-corporate rhetoric from the Democrat candidates that if followed through, will drive labor overseas despite promises of tax breaks to the contrary.
And if Chrysler decides to continue on the path of “China or bust” I will never purchase another Chrysler product, ever.
I agree with the Democrats on this one - that instead of bribing companies to stay in America, we should level the playing field by levying import duties, which was, by the way, the government’s primary source of revenue when first founded. We can’t afford tax breaks any more — if you hadn’t noticed, we’re spending $800 billion a year on servicing our debt.