Mercedez Benz may have made fewer cars than Chrysler, but lets not forget that Mercedez is only one of several divisins within Daimler Benz and the whole is much larger than Chrysler so it was only a matter of time before Chysler was swallowed up. The fact that they weren’t too open about their intentions has ended up hurting their share price considerably.
Contrary to Daimler running Chrysler into the ground, Daimler is a German blue chip and had always been profitable until the Chrysler involvement, whereas Chrysler had already led it to the verge of bankrupcy twice. Chrysler made the bulk of its profits in the minivan sector; when they got into that area there was almost no competition and they made tons of money. However, by the time Daimler got around to buying Chrysler almost every auto company was making minivans and the competition was much tougher, with the corresponding squeeze on margins. The bottom line is money, and Chrysler was making less and less of it. Daimler’s management’s mistake is more likely to have been in buying a company that had a substantial profits time bomb waiting, rather than buying an outperformer and running it into the ground.
I had to revive this thread because a very disturbing thought occurred to me.
The D-C guys have said that within the next few years they will be replacing 3/4 of the Jeep products. Presumably, this means everything except the new Jeep Liberty, and includes the Jeep Wrangler, Cherokee, and Grand Cherokee. What if the Daimler guys, in the depths of their German “we know what’s best” arrogance, are planning to replace the Jeep Wrangler with one of those pint-sized SUV’s like the Suzuki Samuri?
Please, Lord Jesus, let me be wrong about this :eek: …
Very possible. They would be foolish to do so; but as I posted earlier, the “jeep” Jeep has been replaced a few times over the years. The question is whether they will replace it with a “pint-sized SUV” or a “real” Jeep.
If anyone hears anything about it, I’d like to know…
Back in the AMC/Renault days, Jeep R&D developed a test mule for a vehicle to compete directly with the Suzuki Samurai, code-named J-J for Jeep-Junior.
Jeep bounces this idea out of the mothballs every five years or so.
As for the Cherokee, I can well imagine ten or more years out of this model…after all, the previous generation cherokee( Which became the Grand Wagoneer) lasted a good 3 decades, a model run exceeded only by the Checker Marathon.
One thing in the rumor mill, though, is that a limited edition Wrangler is in the works with the V8, 4sp-auto and Quadra-drive swapped out of the Grand Cherokee.
Call it the Grand Wrangler.
That would be nice, but as the site I cited on 01/21 shows, the Cherokee is on its way out. According to the article, it is to be built into 2002; but the talk now is that this is its last year.
Too bad. I really like my Cherokee (which is in the shop at this moment, having been rear-ended last Wednesday. :mad: ). By an uninsured driver, natch.
Check out this site, which I looked at to see what the Liberty looks likes (a bit, nay, a lot like a Sportage).
At the bottom is a concept vehicle (Willys Concept) - could that be the plan Wrangler replacement? http://dirtroad.com/liberty.htm
Also on the concept car page, Note the concept car immediately to the left of the Willys on the top image: Does that not look like an updated (read: rounded) VW thing?
