2004 Chrysler Sebring Touring Low Miles Runs Great on 2040-cars

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Dodge shows can-do attitude with grand Can'avan sculpture

There are lots of ways to celebrate an important birthday, and all of them are well deserved. You can throw a big party, buy yourself something nice, or - if you're the altruistic type - do something for others in need. The latter is how Chrysler has opted to mark the 30th anniversary of its Dodge Grand Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country.
Together with hunger-advocacy organization Canstruction, the Chrysler Foundation has built a full-scale replica of the Grand Caravan out of 30,000 food cans in the square at the corner of Yonge and Dundas in Toronto, a ways down the highway from where the real vans are built in Windsor. The sculpture was built over the course of 10 hours by 30 volunteers and was displayed earlier this week.
Now the installation is being taken down, and the cans of food are being donated to the Daily Bread Food Bank, which will assemble them into 2,000 food baskets to be distributed to those in need through its network of 200 food banks across the Canadian metropolis. Check out a neat time-lapse video of the build and the press release below.

Chrysler investing $20M in Toledo plant to support 9-speed auto production

In 2011, Chrysler announced a $72-million investment in its Toledo Machining Plant to modernize production of the eight- and nine-speed torque-converters for automatic transmissions made there. That upgrade work won't be finished until Q3 of this year, but Chrysler has already announced a further $19.6-million investment to increase production capacity for the nine-speeders.
The extra units will be necessary because the nine-speed transmission they'll be mated to is going into three popular models: it will debut on the 2014 Jeep Cherokee, then go into the Chrysler 200 and Dodge Dart. The company predicted that this year alone it would sell 200,000 units equipped with the nine-speed tranny, and it is spending some $374 million in addition to the investment in Toledo to upgrade production capacity for it.
The work attached to this new investment won't begin until Q3 of 2014, and it will be finished by the end of that year. There's a press release below with all the details.

Italian government to lean on Fiat's Marchionne to commit to country

With the recent chatter that Fiat is looking to move its global headquarters to the US following a complete merger with Chrysler, the Italian government is voicing its opinion on the matter. Facing the potential job loss from the automaker leaving the country, Italy's industry minister is meeting with Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne in what will likely be a plea to keep the company based in Turin rather than moving to Auburn Hills, MI - if indeed it is able to acquire the additional 41.5 percent of Chrysler currently owned by the United Auto Workers.
According to Bloomberg, Fiat is Italy's biggest private employer and unemployment is already nearing a 20-year high. The non-car side of Fiat, Fiat Industrial, is already planning a move to the UK, so it goes without saying that Fiat moving would be a pretty big blow for the Italian economy. In the article, Fiat says that the headquarters issue is "not on its agenda now," but that statement is far from a denial.