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Junkyard Gem: 1978 Plymouth Volare Wagon

When it came time for Chrysler to retire the beloved but antiquated Dart and Valiant in the North American market, the Dodge Aspen and its Plymouth Volare twin were introduced for the 1976 model year. While the Aspen is better remembered today (partly because Aspens were in just about every cop TV show for a good decade and partly because Chrysler revived the Aspen name for a few years in the late 2000s), Plymouth's "small car with the accent on comfort" outsold the Aspen for every one of their five model years of production. Here's one of those Volares, a '78 station wagon with the Custom exterior and Premier interior packages, found in a Denver-area car graveyard recently. I thought this car looked very familiar, and it turns out that it spent many years parked in an alley driveway in my Denver neighborhood, next to a Dodge 600 sedan (which is still on the road; I saw it moving under its own power a few weeks ago). Back in the summer of 2020, I shot this photo for an episode of 24 Hours of Lemons Carspotting. Now I wish I'd talked a local Lemons team into offering a few bucks for this Volare, because it's better to race than to get crushed. Detroit went through an accent phase that started with the Volare and then continued with the Cadillac Allante and Oldsmobile Trofeo. The interior in this car still looks pretty good. This wagon has the exact same interior and exterior colors as the one in the Volare brochure that year. It's nicely equipped, with the optional 318-cubic-inch (5.2-liter) V8 and air conditioning (via the distinctive Chrysler V-twin compressor just in front of the carburetor). The base price on this car was $4,195 (about $19,890 in 2022 dollars), while the 318 cost $129 extra ($610 now). The A/C added $484 more ($2,295 today, and you can see how the price tag got bigger in a hurry with low-priced cars back in the 1970s). Believe it or not, a four-on-the-floor manual transmission was standard equipment in the '78 Volare with 318 engine, but I've never seen one so equipped; this car has the usual three-speed automatic. A cheap wagon like the Volare certainly wasn't going to come with a radio at the base MSRP (though a dealer might throw one in to sweeten the deal). This single-speaker, AM-only radio cost $74 extra ($351 in 2022 dollars).

Four-horse race opens up for next Chrysler-Fiat CEO

There are some companies that could change leadership overnight and still remain more or less the operations that they are. But some have built themselves up around one central figure. Just ask Carlos Tavares, who found he couldn't escape the long shadow of Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn. Tavares recently left to find his own limelight. But Ghosn isn't the only executive who presides over two disparate automakers on opposite ends of the globe.
Having built up Fiat and Chrysler around himself, we can hardly imagine either automaker getting along without Sergio Marchionne. But the day will come when the famously sweater-clad bigwig will step down. The pressing questions remain when when that day will come, and who will take his place. The only solid clues we have are in the statements made mostly by Marchionne himself, but those statements have been all over the place. When speaking to Automotive News in 2012, he said he would step down "no earlier than 2013, no later than 2015." But a year later, he had already seemingly changed his tune, indicating he could still be at the helm in 2016. Fiat chairman John Elkann seems to think Marchionne, 61, could and should stay on longer.

Detroit Three automakers and UAW will continue to require masks

GM CEO Mary Barra at a Warren, Mich., training center in September. (Reuters)   WASHINGTON — Detroit's Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union said on Wednesday that workers will continue to be required to wear masks in workplaces. The joint statement from the UAW and General Motors, Ford and Chrysler-parent Stellantis NV said it was continuing the requirements "out of an abundance of caution." The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in May that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks in most instances, including at work. The UAW and the automakers said temperature screening upon entering facilities is expected to be phased out. The UAW and automakers continue to recommend autoworkers get vaccinated. Many U.S. employers are still requiring vaccinated workers to wear masks in workplaces. Volkswagen AG's U.S. unit said it will "no longer require masks for fully vaccinated employees after June 21, and will continue to follow CDC guidelines." Toyota is among the automakers that has ended temperature checks and entry questionnaires at U.S. plants but it is continuing to require facial coverings. Honda and Nissan said they had made no changes to their U.S. employee COVID-19 requirements.   Plants/Manufacturing Chrysler Dodge Ford GM Jeep RAM Safety coronavirus