2004 Dodge Durango Limited Sport Utility 4-door 5.7l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Auto Mergers and Acquisitions: Suicide or salvation?

We love the Moses figure. A savior riding in from stage right with the ideas, the smarts, and the scrappiness to put things right. Alan Mullaly. Carroll Shelby. Lee Iacocca. Andrew Carnegie. Steve Jobs. Elon Musk. Bart Simpson. Sergio Marchionne does not likely view himself with Moses-like optics, but the CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles recently gave a remarkable, perhaps prophetic interview with Automotive News about his interest and the inevitability of merging with a potential automotive partner like General Motors. Marchionne has been overtly public about his notion that GM must merge with FCA. For a bit of context, GM sold 9.9 million vehicles in 2014, posting $2.8 billion in net income, while FCA sold 4.75 million units and earned $2.4 billion in net income, painting a very rosy FCA earnings-to-sales picture. But that's not the entire picture. Most people in the auto industry still remember the trainwreck that was the DaimlerChrysler "merger" written in what turned out to be sand in 1998. It proved to be a master class in how not to fuse two companies, two cultures, two continents, and two management teams. Oh, it worked for the two individuals at both helms pre-merger. They got silly rich. And the industry itself was in a misty romance at the time with mergers and acquisitions. BMW bought Rolls-Royce. Volkswagen Group bought Bentley, Bugatti, and Lamborghini, putting all three brands into their rightful place in both products and positioning. No marriages there, so no false pretense. Finally, Nissan and Renault got married in 1999. A successful marriage requires several rare elements in this atmosphere of gas fumes and power lust. But a successful marriage requires several rare elements in this atmosphere of gas fumes and power lust, the principle part being honesty. Daimler and Chrysler lied to each other. The heads of each unit, the product planners, and finance all presented their then-current and long-range forecasts to each other with less-than-forthright accuracy. Daimler was the far greater equal and no one from the Chrysler side enjoyed that. The cultures were entirely different, too, and little was done to bridge that gap. Which brings me back to the present overtures by Marchionne to GM. "There are varying degrees of hugs," Marchionne stated in the Automotive News piece. "I can hug you nicely, I can hug you tightly, I can hug you like a bear, I can really hug you." Seriously?

Zombie cars: Discontinued vehicles that aren't dead yet

Car models come and go, but as revealed by monthly sales data, once a car is discontinued, it doesn't just disappear instantly. And in the case of some models, vanishing into obscurity can be a slow, tedious process. That's the case with the 12 cars we have here. All of them have been discontinued, but car companies keep racking up "new" sales with them. There are actually more discontinued cars that are still registering new sales than what we decided to include here. We kept this list to the oldest or otherwise most interesting vehicles still being sold as new, including a supercar. We'll run the list in alphabetical order, starting with *drumroll* ... BMW 6 Series: 55 total sales BMW quietly removed the 6 Series from the U.S. market during the 2019 model year. It had been available in three configurations, a hardtop coupe, a convertible and a sleek four-door coupe-like shape.   BMW i8: 18 total sales We've always had a soft spot for the BMW i8, despite the fact that it never quite fit into a particular category. It was sporty, but nowhere near as fast as similarly-priced competitors. It looked very high-tech and boasted a unique carbon fiber chassis design and a plug-in hybrid powertrain, but wasn't really designed for maximum efficiency or maximum performance. Still, the in-betweener was very cool to look at and drive, and 18 buyers took one home over the course of 2021.   Chevy Impala: 750 total sales The Impala represented classic American tastes at a time when American tastes were shifting away from soft-riding sedans with big interior room and trunk space and into higher-riding crossovers. A total of 750 sales were inked last year.   Chrysler 200: 15 total sales The Chrysler 200 was actually a pretty nice sedan, with good looks and decent driving dynamics let down by a lack of roominess, particularly in the back seat. Of course, as we said regarding the Chevy Impala, the number of Americans in the market for sedans is rapidly winding down, and other automakers are following Chrysler's footsteps in canceling their slow-selling four-doors. Even if Chrysler never really found its footing in the ultra-competitive midsize sedan segment, apparently dealerships have a few leftover 2017 200s floating around. And for some reason, 15 buyers decided to sign the dotted line to take one of these aging sedans home last year.

2015 Dodge Viper GTC available in 25 million no-cost combos with 1 Of 1 bespoke program

What's the one thing no car can have too much of? Here's a hint – it's not power. It's not efficiency, either, or technology, or even safety. It's exclusivity. It's one reason Rolls-Royce has become a legend building absolutely bespoke motor vehicles, and it's the reason Dodge, of all companies, is offering a new GTC trim level for its Viper supercar. Now, you might be asking what's so special and exclusive about a trim level? Well, in the Viper GTC's case, it gives owners access to a catalog of 8,000 shades of paint for the exterior, 24,000 "hand-painted" custom stripe patterns, 10 different wheel options, 16 interior trims and no fewer than six aerodynamic packages. That results in 25 million different configurations for the 645-horsepower snake. Most shockingly, the customization choices come at no additional cost on the GTC model. And it's only the start. Ordering a GTC will enroll customers in a unique VIP program called Viper Concierge, which according to Dodge, "offers an exclusive point of contact throughout the custom Viper build process." In other words, buyers will be given the means to stay right on top of their car's production, through the 140-to-160-hour painting process, which itself will be fully documented with pictures and through a mobile-friendly website, to the actual construction of their GTC. The Concierge process will start with the ordering stage, which will include Dodge sending customers a paint chip showing the owner's custom choosing, which they can confirm or refuse. Shortly thereafter, Dodge will send buyers a 1:18-scale "speed-form" replica in their chosen custom colors, once again to confirm or deny the build. Once the buyer's color and option selection is locked-in, that car becomes a one-of-one Viper for that year – no other buyer will be permitted to build a Viper to the same specifications. The concierge service also grants access to the Viper Ambassador Owner's Portal, where orderers can track their car's build process, receive weekly updates and share their excitement with (jealous) friends and family. And once the car is complete, it will be fitted with a custom dash plaque identifying its bespoke provenance – the owner can choose to have their name put on the badge, the car's nickname, or whatever they wish (Dodge will also ship each Viper with a second blank plate to include if the original owner sells the car).