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Court ruling to delay Fiat's Chrysler buyout?

We've already reported on the attempts of Fiat to purchase the remaining 41.5-percent stake in Chrysler, currently owned by the United Auto Workers' VEBA healthcare trust. And while the issues still aren't resolved, Fiat has received both a bit of good news and a bit of bad news from a Delaware judge.
The good news is that the court ruled in favor on two key arguments of Fiat's, relating to what is a fair price for the Chrysler shares. The rulings essentially slash half a billion dollars off the price of the 54,000 shares owned by VEBA, according to a report from Reuters.
The bad news is that this makes the UAW an even more difficult opponent in negotiations. Its VEBA fund is meant to cover ever escalating retiree healthcare costs, so naturally, the UAW wants to get as much money as possible. Losing a big chunk of cash isn't likely to make the union more cooperative.

FCA goes all-in on Jeep and Ram brands on cheap gas bet

It's no surprise that as SUV and truck sales remain strong in the wake of unusually cheap gas, Jeep and Ram sales are taking off. What is a surprise is that FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne thinks that cheap gas will be a "permanent condition," and feels strongly enough about it to change up North American manufacturing plans. Jeep appears to be the biggest beneficiary of the product realignment. In addition to increasing the sales estimates for the brand worldwide upwards to 2 million units a year by 2018, the brand will get a flood of investment for new product and powertrains. Consider the Wrangler Pickup to be part of the salvo, as well as the Grand Wagoneer three-row announced in 2014 as part of the original five-year plan. The Wrangler four-door will get at least two new powertrains, a diesel and mild hybrid version, in its next generation. That mild hybrid powertrain may utilize a 48-volt electrical system like the one that's being developed by Delphi and Bosch – which the suppliers think will be worth a 10 to 15 percent fuel economy gain at a minimum. Down the road, in the 2020s, the Wrangler could adopt a full hybrid system. The diesel powertrain is planned for 2019 or 2020. The Ram 1500 is also pegged to receive a mild hybrid system, again potentially based on 48-volt architecture, sometime after 2020. Lastly, Jeep and Ram will take over some of the production capacity of existing plants. The Sterling Heights, MI, plant that builds the Chrysler 200 will now build the Ram 1500; the Belvidere, IL, facility that produces the Dodge Dart will take over Cherokee output; the big Jeep facility in Toledo, OH, will be used for increased Wrangler demand. In 2015, according to FCA's numbers, car and van demand went down by 10 percent, but SUV demand went up 8 percent and truck demand 2 percent. Considering that these are high-margin vehicles, FCA can't ignore the math. FCA also won't build any new factories to supplement production to meet demand, but instead are reshuffling production priorities. Think of it this way: FCA is gambling on cheap gas being a permanent part of our lives, at least into the 2020s. By doubling down on SUVs and trucks, the company stands to win big, unless a spike in gas prices changes the landscape. FCA isn't talking about a Plan B, so they're all in. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Junkyard Gem: 1976 Chrysler Cordoba

With engine power way down and a sense of malaise settling over American roads, Detroit (and Kenosha) turned to opulent-looking personal luxury coupes on midsize platforms to lure car shoppers into showrooms. While John DeLorean's Pontiac Grand Prix started it all more than a decade before, one of the best-known of all the rococo personal luxury coupes was the Chrysler Cordoba. Today's Junkyard Gem is an early example of the Cordoba, found in a Northern California car graveyard last fall. The first generation of the Cordoba (1975 through 1979 model years) was built on Chrysler's B Platform, making it a sibling to quite a few of the most legendary Dodge and Plymouth muscle cars of the 1960s. This includes the Charger, Super Bee, Road Runner, Daytona and Superbird. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. While French and Italian cities were very popular for use as American-market car names during the second half of the 20th century, Spain wasn't completely ignored by Detroit. Ford offered the Granada, Cadillac had the Seville, and Chrysler decided to go with the ancient city of Cordoba as the namesake for its new personal luxury coupe. As native espanol mexicano speaker and longtime Chrysler pitchman Ricardo Montalban explains in the 1987 David Letterman interview above (skip ahead to 8:10), the correct Spanish pronunciation is really "CORE-doe-bah" with the emphasis on the first syllable, but Chrysler went with a spelling and pronunciation that was easier for English speakers to deal with. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. We can't talk about Ricardo Montalban and the Cordoba without watching at least one of the TV commercials that helped make the early Cordoba such a sales hit and put the term "Corinthian Leather" into everyday American discourse. Sometimes Ricardo described the leather as soft, while the terms rich and fine were applied on other occasions. This car does not have Corinthian Leather, which cost an extra $187 in 1976 (about $1,020 in 2023 dollars). Instead, it has the "Calacia velour" cloth-&-vinyl seat upgrade, which cost just $17 ($93 after inflation). The base seats were done up in "cashmere-like" cloth-and-vinyl.