2005 Chrysler Crossfire Srt-6 Coupe 2-door 3.2l on 2040-cars

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MotorWeek retro review revisits the Chrysler PT Cruiser

I have a long history with the Chrysler PT Cruiser. My mom was working at Automobile magazine when it launched, and she brought home their long-term tester all the time. My buddy Adam's mom bought one in the early 2000s, and I drove it on many an occasion. When I left Winding Road in early 2010 and joined Autoblog, the car I got on Day 1 was... well, I think you can guess. I will never forget driving that 2010 PT Cruiser to a rest stop outside of Toledo, Ohio, to meet then editor-in-chief John Neff and buy his old camera. I will also never forget the look on Neff's face when he pulled into the parking lot in his 1991 Ford Taurus SHO, saw the PT, and started laughing. I have always hated this car. But when it launched around the turn of the millennium, it was a huge deal – not just for Chrysler, but for the industry. Retro styling was all the rage, and the PT had it in spades. On top of that, it was seriously functional – one of the first widely accepted tall hatchbacks in an era where Americans wanted sedans. MotorWeek has now dug up its original PT Cruiser review for its latest retro review offering. Watch the video above to see what the ever-charismatic John Davis and his crew thought of the PT way back when it was actually relevant.

Germany says Fiat Chrysler also cheats on diesel emissions

In May, Germany threatened to ban Fiat Chrysler vehicles because they supposedly had diesel emissions cheat devices. The guilty vehicle at the time was a Fiat 500X. Since then, Italian regulators looked into the issue and said they found no such device. But Germany didn't back down, and filed papers today with the European Commission (EC) and the Italian Transport Ministry saying, again, that there were questionable emissions results in four FCA vehicles. According to Reuters, the Germany's new tests proved there was an, "illegal use of a device to switch off exhaust treatment systems" in the four FCA vehicles. According to Der Spiegel, the four vehicles in the latest batch of offenders are the two new 500Xs, a Fiat Doblo, and a Jeep Renegade. Alexander Dobrindt, Germany's Federal Minister of Transport, noted the vehicles in the letter to the EC, which also said that the EC should communicate with Italian regulators as the next step. Related Video: News Source: Reuters, Der SpiegelImage Credit: GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP/Getty Images Government/Legal Green Chrysler Fiat Diesel Vehicles vw diesel scandal FCA diesel scandal

Fiat pondering swallowing rest of Chrysler, US IPO

At the moment, Fiat is in court with the United Auto Workers, waiting for the justice system to provide some guidance on a fair price for 41.5-percent of Chrysler it doesn't own. Fiat owns 58.5 percent of the company and wishes to buy the remainder, which is owned by the union's VEBA retiree trust, but the Italian company and the UAW are on different sides of the galaxy when it comes to assigning a fair price to that outstanding stake.
Naturally, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne is considering his options. A new report in the The Wall Street Journal says one of the scenarios being considered now is - depending on the outcome of the court case - to purchase the 41.5-percent stake and then issue an IPO to recoup some of the cost. About two months ago, Marchionne put the odds of an IPO for a wholly combined Fiat/Chrysler at 50 percent. Even with the WSJ report, it's not clear if those odds have changed.
The current company structure leaves a lot of options as to how a potential IPO could be issued, but it's said that Marchionne is against it, preferring "to be one company," under Fiat, indivisible. If Fiat is finally able to purchase all of the Pentastar, it would get access to Chrysler's war chest, pegged at $11.9 billion at the end of Q3 in 2012, and that money can't come soon enough for a brand taking a beating in Europe and delaying product over cash concerns.