By Jeff Karoub, AP Business Writer Dealer Says Chrysler Plans to Significantly Reduce Its Product, Dealership Lineups
DETROIT (AP) -- Chrysler LLC plans to significantly reduce its product lineup and number of dealerships as the automaker rolls out a new corporate initiative, a Chrysler dealer in Texas said Friday.

The automaker has told dealers as it outlines its Project Genesis plan that it could cut its number of models by as much as half and reduce the number of dealerships selling its cars by as much as a third in an effort to boost efficiency, according to Alan Helfman, vice president of River Oaks Chrysler Jeep in Houston.
"I think they're trying to get a little leaner, a little more efficient," he said.

Chrysler spokeswoman Lori McTavish declined to comment, but the company said in a statement that it plans to align Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge product offerings under one roof.

"At this point, we have not made any final decisions regarding our dealer optimization or future product plans, nor has the company set any firm timelines," Jim Press, president and vice chairman, said in the statement.
Helfman said it looks like a good step by the company, but he's concerned about how it might be carried out.
He said Chrysler could run into trouble with state franchise laws that in part protect dealers from going out of business.

"We have two of the largest dealerships in Houston," he said. "I'd love both of them to be ... `Genesized,' but tell me how to do it."

Chrysler earlier this month said it was launching a new ad campaign that includes lower prices on 12 of its vehicles. The campaign aims to cast the automaker as a company that's listening to consumers and responding with new features.

Chrysler, which is in the midst of a restructuring after a majority stake in the automaker was sold last summer to private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP, announced in November it planned to cut up to 11,000 jobs, including 8,000 to 10,000 hourly and 1,000 salaried positions. The cuts came in addition to 13,000 reductions Chrysler announced last February, including 11,000 hourly and 2,000 salaried workers in the U.S. and Canada.

 

In all honesty... It's time.

The only remnant of the original edgy and innovative Chrysler Corp since the merge at the millenium has been the SRT team, and even they have been progressively throttled and unsupported.

Chrysler could certainly benefit from a press of the reset button. Especially with so many people around still enthusiastic about her recovery. Why drag her good name through the mud and destroy all respect ever afforded Mother Mopar when you can start over with some semblance of brand loyalty still intact.

... just don't screw it up with more of the same mundane, bland, uninspired, unoriginal crap as the Pacifica, Aspen, Caliper, 4 models of the same damn Jeep, and 8 models of those 4 jeep models rebranded.

 

The new Challenger mundane ? Not tryin to be a wisea$$ but not understanding the train of thought. Everyone passes a dud now and then ! Some bigger than others.

 

Oh no, those are the kind of cars they need to solidify their reputation... but look at all the useless crap they are wasting time and money manufacturing.

You can only rely on so many appliance cars... especially when every japanese competator can do it better for cheaper. Time to downsize and command niche markets (like pickup trucks & muscle cars).

And for goodness sake, when you plan to manufacture a two seater sports car... don't use cheapened mercedes crap and try to charge $40,000 for it. You WILL fail. Suck it up, build the SRT Demon, and thrash the competition.

 

Agreed ! Bring back the Duster ! Ha ! Miss that 73 Duster, wish she was still around.

 

This needed to be done anyways. Daimler thought they needed to cheapen up and sell way more dull products instead of making reasonable expectations of them and making a smaller number of things that people actually wanted to buy and that's why they're in the trouble they're in.

Ford was in a really bad spot a few years ago and they have since downsized and focused on making great products instead of turning out droves of incompetent product that noone bought. Look at some of the great cars they're putting out now and in the near future.

 

like AMC,,,,....going down in flames lol, after dealing with Chrysler and thier products for the past 2-3 years, I say why buy a Chrysler when you can have a Chevy, Ford, Honda, Nissan, Toyota, etc...... and after owning a Mercedes product I think I've lost respect for the Mercedes quality that name represented. too bad. : (

 

When Diamler took over they did the same thing. Axed the Avenger, which was a edgy, nice lloking car. Cut the Plymouth brand, thank goodness. The world is a better place without "cloud" cars. Then they started introducing their technology. NAG1 auto trans, A savior for Chrysler products, and I can only hope that they keep going with it. Again with the trans issues, the CVT which is made by Nissan. Great trans, but a poor choice of cars it's in. LX boddies, by far the best all around car built by Chrysler that I can even think of. If they cut the Jeep Patriot, and the Compass, which are the same car, and combine them into one, do something to spruce up the Caliber, the interior just destroys any hope of style. They have unfortunately pulled the plug on the Magnum. Finally they need to produce more diesel vehicles. The 3.0 mercedes CRD turbo diesel is an awesome engine, that is quiet, gets excellent fuel economy, loads of power torque and HP, and has low emissions. If they would offer the Nitro, Liberty, and maybee the LX boddies with this engine, I think it would help a ton. The fact is that Europeans have gone towards diesel technology for many years now, and Americans don't have the brains to understand that they are great for everybody. Before I bought my x-fire I was talking to corporate people in Chrysler trying to find out if there were immediate plans to put the CRD in the Nitro, and if so, I would have bought that instead in a heartbeat.

My jumbled $.02
P.S. The Pacifica blows goat *****!

Shawn

 

Demon, lol!! That's another let down!!!! I just read in C & D that Chrysler has decided to build the Demon, but get this, on a FRONT DRIVE platform!! I don't care how cool it looks, nobody wants a front drive convertible sports car!!!! They decided this due to cost and availability!! WHATEVER!! Another disappointment and probably a failure. Do they really think enthusiasts will pass up the other nice options like the rear drive MX5 (one of the 10 best for years), Solstice, or Sky? No way in he11!

 

Sadly you are correct, however they would need to bassicly come up with a new platform for that. However, depending on how the fuel cruch goes, and if rumors are true that they are going to axe the Hemi in everything but trucks, they are slated to make a Challenger convertible. A little outside the price point of the previously mentioned vehicles though.

 

I feel I need to add one more thing. The Crossfire is probably, and should come to an end. Chrysler needs to move forward, and the x-fire just screams, "HELP, WE CAN'T STAND ON OUR OWN AND WE NEED MB!" This is not true though, but I still think they need to end production. The car isn't a great seller, it's becoming out dated, and I would like to see small production #'s so mine will start increasing in value,...I hope.

 

Chrysler's draconian diet

Commentary: Cerberus foray into autos edges closer to survival mode

By MarketWatch
Last update: 3:05 p.m. EST Feb. 8, 2008




SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Cerberus Capital Management added Chrysler to its private-equity empire last year, confident that it could turn around the ailing company.
That golden opportunity is starting to look like a crisis plan.
Just last July, Cerberus Chairman and former U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow crowed that extensive due diligence showed they could fix the ailing carmaker, riding an imminent rebound in the North American auto industry. He also assured anxious auto workers that Cerberus had no intention of flipping the company, but planned to hold it for a long time.

Seven months later, sales at Chrysler continue to skid, putting it on track for a 2007 loss estimated at $1.6 billion. Its overall January car and truck sales fell 12% from a year ago, far worse than the 4% decline seen at Ford Motor Co.

Facing bloated inventories in an increasingly skittish market, Chrysler is putting itself on a draconian weight-loss program, which according to media reports Friday includes shedding up to a third of its model lineup.
There are no details yet on what models will be dropped. But while pitching "Project Genesis" this week to dealers round the country, Chrysler executives apparently are making clear that showrooms will soon have extra space to display the survivors.
Chrysler is taking a page from Ford's playbook. Ford, under Chief Executive Alan Mulally's tutelage, is pruning its product line to match harsh marketplace realities.
But the bigger question for Chrysler is whether it can keep running as an independent car company. Cerberus' acquisition coincided with a severe unraveling of the credit market, hobbling its ability to finance takeovers in completely different industries while making its purchase of Chrysler look the very picture of bad market timing.
In this chilly climate, Chrysler has few options. It must pull itself up by its own bootstraps because there are no partners or white knights out there with the cash or gumption needed to make a big bet Chrysler's future. Should that fail, it gets wheeled into the chop shop -- dismantling the business on the conviction its parts are worth more than the whole.
Meanwhile, senior executives at Germany's Daimler AG are probably kicking themselves for not being able at the time to fully jettison all the financial commitments needed to push the sale through.
Although Daimler still owns 20% of Chrysler, it can hardly be counted on at this point to pump in fresh capital -- unless the whole deal was an amazingly farsighted scheme to "short" Chrysler and pick up the pieces at a steep discount down the road.
But that seems a stretch.

 

Where have ya been? The last Crossfire rolled off the assembly line a while ago. As for it being outdated, I don't think it could ever be outdated. It's styling is unique and lasting. It didn't follow any trends whatsoever. Mechanically, yes, but not looks.

 

The front of the Charger is interesting, but it has the same rear as half the other cars that Dodge makes. Charger.... 300.... Magnum... they all got the same butt. I hate design by committee crap that all carmakers are engaging in these days. For goodness sake, find some good designers and let them DESIGN and don't handcuff them with 'branding' concepts. We are witnessing the death of creativity all over.

 

Yeah, what he said. Except that they followed up by giving the Pacifica and Sebring very similar front ends and the Sebring similar lines and of course all the Chryslers have the mini-van grill on them. It pisses me off that my fun, two seat car, shares any styling cues with a mini-van. It's just stupid. No one buys a mini van because it has the same grill as a Crossfire (or anything else) and CERTAINLY no one bought the Crossfire because it had that awesome Chrysler mini-van grill on it.

You want to know why creativity is dying in American cars? Because people like Tom Peters are running the programs. Tom Peters is the Design Director of rear wheel drive performance cars at GM. You know what he said about the new Camaro? "The overall proportions, long hood, and powerful fender forms say, 'this is a front engine, rear wheel drive performance vehicle'" Is that what they say to you? I think whether you like the Camaro concept or not, it doesn't say THAT to you. Corporate speak is why creativity and innovation are dying all over the place. Too many people looking for WHY something makes you like things and then trying to design something with some of those features, instead of just letting passion and imagination rule. No one would ever have built the '57 Chevy Bel Air today. No one would ever have built the Stingray Corvette today. Everyone's too busy looking backward to try to pull stuff that we used to like instead of working to built the next NEW thing.

At least our car started out unique (more or less). Too bad the lesson learned from it in corporate world is that unique doesn't sell cars instead of 'man, we sure screwed that marketing thing up'.

 

I agree with you! However, for the design of our car, they looked waaaayyy back to the 20s and 30s for inspiration. Back to the days of Art Deco to be exact. I'm glad designers are taking a retro approach. It's too bad that they can't design anything new, but at least they are copying cars that did look good at one time. The problem with today is money. The companies are too worried about squeezing pennies from people, to go all out on a design. Look at concept cars. Materials are nice, features are nice, many of the designs are breathtaking because the designers didn't have a price point. The car companies have lost the passion of the art, now it's mostly about the passion of more money, more money, more money. Recently though, the big three have learned that you can penny pinch for only so long before people give up on you and move to a car company that actually cares about their products. That is a main reason why they are trying to play catch up today. Some might not make it!

 

you all are right, I don't work in the dealership, I don't work on the cars, I don't know what I'm talking about.

 

Well, you obviously missed the fact that production of the Crossfire ended a while ago. That is a main problem with Chrysler dealership employees, they are mis-informed aparently !

You said this:

"...but I still think they need to end production. The car isn't a great seller, it's becoming out dated, and I would like to see small production #'s so mine will start increasing in value,...I hope."