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Junkyard Gem: 1981 Dodge Challenger

The first Dodge Challenger was an E-Body sibling to the 1970-1974 Plymouth Barracuda, and it was a pure Chrysler product with either Slant-6 or V8 power. Then stuff happened and the Challenger name went away for a while, returning in 1978 on a rebadged Mitsubishi Galant Lambda. For 1981, the Challenger got an updated body, and that's what we've got here in a Denver-area self-service wrecking yard. Chrysler was selling lots of Mitsubishis by the early 1980s, including the Colt econobox, the Dodge Ram 50 pickup, and the Plymouth Arrow truck. The Challenger's Plymouth-badged sibling was the Sapporo. This one had a bunch of late-1990s receipts from Los Angeles-area shops, and a check of the VIN on the California smog-check database shows that it last passed the Golden State's emissions test in 1997. Did it drive to Colorado 20 years ago and then sit until a few months ago? There is no easy way to know. Early Mitsubishi-built Challengers could be had with a 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine, but in 1981 the only engine choice was the Astron 2.6 four-banger, rated at 105 horsepower. Members of the Astron 2.6 family powered everything from Dodge Aries-Ks to Mitsubishi Starions in North America, and production continued nearly into our current century for Chinese-market trucks. Not many miles on this car, and no rust. The Index of Effluency-winning team at the recent Colorado 24 Hours of Lemons race grabbed a few bits from this car for their somewhat related 1976 Plymouth Arrow, but otherwise it appears that this rare classic may go to the crusher more or less intact. It's a lightweight, rear-wheel-drive coupe with decent power (for its era) and a 5-speed manual transmission, but there's just not much of a following in Colorado for these cars. I see the occasional Sapporo or Challenger during my junkyard travels, but the numbers have declined in recent years. Soon they will all be gone. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Related Video: Featured Gallery Junked 1981 Dodge Challenger View 26 Photos Auto News Dodge Automotive History Coupe Performance

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?

Fiat Chrysler and the UAW reach tentative labor deal

DETROIT — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union on Saturday announced a tentative agreement for a four-year labor contract, a boost for the automaker as it works to merge with France's Groupe PSA. Italian-American Fiat Chrysler and PSA, the maker of Peugeot and Citroen, last month announced a planned $50 billion merger to create the world's fourth-largest automaker. The tentative agreement with Fiat Chrysler, which is subject to ratification by the union members, follows contracts that the UAW already concluded with Ford Motor Co and General Motors Co. The deal with GM followed a 40-day strike in the United States that virtually shuttered GM's North American operations and cost the automaker $3 billion. The UAW on Saturday said the contract with Fiat Chrysler included a commitment from FCA to invest $9 billion, creating 7,900 new jobs over the course of the four-year contract. Of the $9 billion, $4.5 billion was announced earlier this year, to be invested in five plants and creating 6,500 jobs. Detailed terms of the tentative agreement were not released, but they are expected to echo those under the new contracts with GM and Ford, as the UAW typically uses the first deal as a pattern for the others. "FCA has been a great American success story thanks to the hard work of our members," UAW acting President Rory Gamble said in a statement. "We have achieved substantial gains and job security provisions for the fastest growing auto company in the United States." Ratification is not a sure thing. Rank-and-file UAW members at FCA in 2015 rejected the first version of a contract. In addition, a lawsuit related to a federal corruption probe could also raise doubts among union members about the terms agreed. The federal corruption led GM to file a racketeering lawsuit against FCA, alleging that its rival bribed union officials over many years to corrupt the bargaining process and gain advantages, costing GM billions of dollars. FCA has brushed off the lawsuit as groundless. Under the UAW's deal with GM, the automaker agreed to invest $9 billion in the United States, including $7.7 billion directly in its plants, and to create or retain 9,000 UAW jobs. Ford's contract included commitments to invest more than $6 billion in its U.S. plants and to create or retain more than 8,500 UAW jobs. The deals with GM and Ford also created a pathway to full-time employment for temporary workers and left healthcare insurance coverage unchanged.