- QUITTERS: Chrysler will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after all. A small group of creditors didn’t want to negotiate on Chrysler’s $6.9 billion of secured debt, so now a judge will decide how much they get. Chrysler will still be teaming up with Fiat, though, so KEEP BUYING CHRYSLERS at the breakneck volume you’ve been buying them for years. [AP]
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{ 53 comments }
No hope.
With such anal-blasted offerings as the Pacifica and the gigantic monster, “300 C,” it is an absolute surprise that Chrysler would be doing this. Can you even fit a “300 C” on a European road? Whatever, it’s FANCY. Also.
I got John Voit’s LE BARON. Game, set and MATCH.
Bring back the K-car! With absolutely no styling changes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMxvC1WA4ZY
Awww, poor hedge funds.
“The Reliant K-Car is neither reliable nor worth a thousand anythings… discuss.”
[re=304468]norbizness[/re]:
Don’t let your female friend’s crazy dad fix it though.
BTW, where will I find any more RICH Corinthian (P)leather?
If Chrysler couldn’t make it with a poonmobile like the Crossfire convertible, he dead.
Obama = CEO Fail
The NPR was suggesting (this morning) that some of Chryslers creditors might be trying to force the company into bankruptcy in order to increase the value of their Ford and GM holdings.
I will shed no tears for the K-Car.
But Chrysler plans on coming out of bankruptcy — so going broke isn’t the end. It’s just one more painful stumble on the agonizingly slow road there.
I haz a sad. My best friend owns a Jeep/Dodge dealership. That actually makes money. This is going to be rough on her.
Today we are all Lee Iacocca. Or Coca. Or Coco Chanel.
The last tie-up between Chrysler and a large European automaker worked well, if by “worked well” you mean “drove Chrysler into the ground.”
But, if it means that I’ll be able to buy an Alfa or Fiat 500 at my local Dodge dealer, I am all for it. I just hope the Italians are better at pronouncing “Chrysler” than the Germans were, because that got really grating after a while.
In some far corner of hell burns a 1972 Dodge Demon, my first car. Asmodeus sticks his pecker in its tailpipe. Belial presses his tongue into the throats of the car’s designers, manufacturers, and salesmen. Vassago, Seir, Dantalion and Andromalius dance around the car as it simmers and smokes for all eternity, just as it did when I owned it.
Chapter 11? Isn’t there a Spinal Tap gag in there somewhere?
[re=304487]Formerly Preferred[/re]: Well there was the passably funny how do you pronounce “Daimler Chrysler”?
A: “Daimler” since the Chrysler was silent.
I shall double my consumption of Chrysler.
2 x 0 = 0
Patriotism!
The Dodge Caliber is such a repugnant piece of crap that it alone warrants Chrysler’s doom. You gotta figure that if Mercedes bought the company, looked at what they got, and then essentially gave it back for free, it must be profoundly damaged. There’s a kind of myopia in Detroit: the bigshots look out the windows of their lavish offices and see nothing but American cars in the parking lot; then they can’t figure out why THER DOIN IT RONG!
[re=304440]Custerwolf[/re]: Re your message last night: you’re welcome. Be careful out here, though.
[re=304488]A Better American Than YOU[/re]: You seem somewhat let down by your Dodge Demon experience, though it’s good to see you’ve put it behind you & moved on.
[re=304486]Tommy Says Soooo, Jugdish![/re]:
Lemme see…
Lee Iacocca = dead
Coco Chanel = dead
Chrysler’s finances = dead, but not forever
Zombie cars are our future!
[re=304497]hobospacejunkie[/re]: Ahab had his whale. I have my own Moby Dick.
Little Gray Chevette!
Baby, you’re not too fast –
Little Gray Chevette –
You need less rust, ana clutch that’s gonna last
(at least til I get through college)
[gyrates around as if in an 1990-version Prince video]
Meanwhile, Joe the Biden made a big boo boo today. Ha. What a dick.
[re=304494]V572625694[/re]: There were some truly repugnant Chryslers built in the last ten years, but in the ten years *before* Chrysler sold itself to the Germans they built some passably acceptable products; the LHs were quite nice, for their day, and the “cloud cars” weren’t bad, either. I think blaming the failure of the DaimlerChrysler “merger of equals” entirely on Chrysler isn’t fair. Daimler did more than their fair share of destroying the value of that enterprise.
[re=304484]pondscum[/re]: I live in Detroit, and have many, many friends who work for Chrysler and their suppliers. The whole region was already hemorrhaging. I haz a sad, too.
This is just a mid-life chrysler.
Volare WoOoO
Was one of those creditors Capital One? Those fuckers won’t negotiate shit.
The day they dropped Ricardo Montalban as a spokesman, they lost me as a customer.
Oh, the feel of that Cooorr-inthian Leeeather…
[re=304511]Crazybroad[/re]: The top managers of Chrysler and GM really ought to be lined up and shot, one by one.
[re=304473]norbizness[/re]: Fugly? You bet, but I’ve seen more ancient K-cars on the road here in NY than any other of the same era. For some reason, they’re usually a dead flat grey, probably worn down to the primer.
[re=304498]Cicada[/re]: Lee will be sorry to hear he is dead. He doesn’t know it yet apparently.
[re=304529]zenferret[/re]: If I prefer to live in a world where the Watchmen movie defines my reality, that is my choice.
Right between the eyes! Moohoohahaha!
[re=304507]bitchincamaro[/re]: Usually his gaffs amuse me. Not this time. Bigus dickus.
I can’t fucking stand these greedy bastards who would rather see the auto industry die than lose a few more pennies on the dollar. Hedge funds are what’s wrong with America. America won’t be free until the last hedge fund manager is strangled wit the entrails of the last right-wing radio talk show host.
[re=304510]Formerly Preferred[/re]: Probably so. The “Dr. Z” commercials were also toxic.
[re=304511]Crazybroad[/re]: It’s sad when a great American city withers and dies, no matter who’s fault. Read autoextremist.com if you want to hear the death rattle.
[re=304540]Serolf Divad[/re]: I think we should just make them all personally drive 2009 Chrysler Sebrings to their jobs in Manhattan. That combination is punishment enough for any mortal.
It didn’t work with rich, Corinthian leather, so it shouldn’t with the ‘a HEMI in every garage’ mentality.
[re=304527]bitchincamaro[/re]:
I refer to those cars as ‘re-entry vehicles’.
[re=304540]Serolf Divad[/re]: I am not usually a torch and pitchfork kind of guy, but the prospect of indirectly financing the liquidation of GM…yeah, that makes me want to storm a castle someplace.
Oh, come on you guys. You know you’ve all been drooling over the PT Cruiser since 2000, unless you were rich enough to actually OWN such a sweet hunk of poorly nostalgically designed scrap metal. That thing has SO MUCH room in the back….
[re=304494]V572625694[/re]: The Dodge Caliber was designed, built and released under the watch of ze Chermans.
Just sayin’.
The bond holders wanted a chance to carve out Jeep and sell it to VW or Fiat themselves. Sorry, guys, Obama is picking the cherries now.
No tears for Chrysler: Purveyor of anonymous rattling rental cars. It sucks about the communities and the dealers, but this gravy train broke down a while ago.
The DCX merger was supposed to give Mercedes mass production capacity to develop high quality platforms like the E-class into volume cars that would make everyone rich. But that was like Mario Batali buying a Pizza Hut franchise so he could sell downscale gourmet buffalo mozzerella pizzas on a mass scale. Synergies only exist in business school. MOST mergers lose value for everyone but the bankers who finance them.
The only passably competitive cars Chysler has made in the past 15 years are the ultra low volume Viper sports car, some minivans, the hefty 300C, and the gas guzzling Cherokee. Usually, we get abominations like the Sebring and the Compass, cars whose interiors you literally could pry apart with your fingers. And then a heap of silly, hideous retro-styled cars that just shouts to the world that the company’s best days are long gone and that they have no new ideas.
I owned a 1978 Chrysler Cordoba, with a landau top and rich, corinthian leather, yes, yes, it had the rich corinthian leather. It got about 70 horsepower ouot of a 400 cubic inch V-8, and 12 to 14 mpg. It was white, inside and out, with white landau top. It was like my own little Prom limo.
[re=304576]Prommie[/re]: I remember an interview of Ricardo Montalban, years ago.. He said that “rich corinthian leather” was a total fabrication.
[re=304498]Cicada[/re]: Lee Iacoca is not dead. He only looks dead.
They now have a once in the lifetime opportunity with the red state voters and the stupid: COLLECTABLES!!
Buy a PT Cruiser now, this unique machine is sure to increase in value over time, just like collector Hummell figurines, collector Palin plates, and those Obambi Chia Pets.
[re=304628]Bruno[/re]: Hey, it took about 35 years or so, but plain vanilla Studebakers are now considered ‘collectible’. The fancy ones, like the Hawks and Avantis are fetching pretty big bucks.
[re=304466]shortsshortsshorts[/re]: Actually 300Cs are quite popular in Ukraine, among a certain musclebound set who wear Italian suits and drive around with hot blondes in the passenger seat. Y’know, legitimate businessmen.
[re=304566]viviangrrrl[/re]: Hey, now, PT Cruisers are cheap as dirt, as long as you don’t spring for the Turbo. It’s just a Dodge Neon, sure, but it’s a COOL-looking Dodge Neon, and with the back seat out (it’s actually a micro-mini-van) you can haul quite a bit of crap in it. Not the best car I’ve ever owned, but good value for $14k.
[re=304520]Johnny Zhivago[/re]: Oh hell yeah — I’ve been telling people GM would go bankrupt for 4 years…Schadenfreude and “I told you so” are waging war in my head.
[re=304544]V572625694[/re]: I can see GM HQ from my office, and would expect jumpers if the windows over there weren’t sealed.
You know what’s fun, in a really dorky kind of way? Watching lower-tier creditors eat it after they force somebody into Chapter 11, rather than negotiate a debt-for-credit swap. I hope those hedge-fund bastards wind up with two cents on the dollar, in 1-percent-dividend, non-negotiable stock.
Duh. Debt-for-equity.
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