While we genuflect at the altar of Marchionne no big surprise that
De Lorenzo torched him today
http://www.autoextremist.com/
I'm a bit of a Marchionne fan but I can't deny there maybe some truth to De Lorenzo's arguments. Is there a more proper place on this forum to discuss this piece?
I used to have ttime for the Autoextremist but I now see him as a gigantic know-nothing loud mouth, with pretentions of grandeur..
He thinks he is a genuine Detroit insider, merely because Daddy was indeed an automotive Big Wheel, and L'il Peter got to play wth some prestigious Detroit iron that Daddy or Daddy's friends brought home. His only contribution to the automotive scene, was fashioning merchandising jingles for the automakers in an Advertsing house division in Detroit.. He knows no engineering or factory automation, but reserves his ardor for the Stylist critiques of automotive art.
He still likes to play with prestigious auto toys, and dutifully follows the auto racing scene. As if that meant anything at all, and even less as a qualifier or precursor of furture automotive technology today, than it used to be. L'il Peter is still playing with his toys, and thinking he himself is a Big Wheel in Detroit, because he follows the races and has autographs from some racing greats .Kind of pathetic, much like the traveling Groupies of a rock band.
He likes to think of Sergio Marchionne as a foreign interloper, pillaging an American automaker, which he alone is defending, when Sergio is just as much a native of Detroit but across the river in (ahem) Windsor. Putting himself up against Sergio, a genuine CEO and savior of Fiat and now Chrysler, and a true Big Wheel, is comparable to the ant challlenging the elephant to a wrestling match.
Sergio is hardly a saint, but he has competently rescued two big automakers and may be fashioning an automotive giant if he can add an Asian leg to his European and American based auto conglomerate. He has rebuilt the infrastructure of both companies, and heavily modernized old and opened severalnew factories; and prepared them for tomorrow's automotive battles as well as todays.
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