Chrysler selling Viper brand

[OwlMBA]

Can you hear the funeral bells for the US auto industry?

Nah, the govt will never let it happen. The US taxpayers will get to foot the bill for yet another failed industry. Do we all get a free car out of it?

At a time when General Motors is trying to sell the Hummer SUV line – and not getting very far – it must take courage to put something on the block.

But unlike the lumbering, gas guzzling Hummer line, Viper may not be such a tough sell.

Unlike a Hummer, the Viper is not designed for off-road use. It’s no paragon of fuel-efficiency either, but it gives you a unique, luxurious handcrafted vehicle.

http://blogs.reuters.com/reuters-dea...-on-the-block/

[lacarnut]

Can you hear the funeral bells for the US auto industry?

Nah, the govt will never let it happen. The US taxpayers will get to foot the bill for yet another failed industry. Do we all get a free car out of it?


http://blogs.reuters.com/reuters-dea...-on-the-block/

They will not have any problems selling the Viper because it is a low volume supercar with a very high resale value. Additionally, the Viper has some very loyal followers who will buy new ones every few years.

[OwlMBA]

It seems they are selling their only profitable brand. Great move.

[SaintLouieWoman]

Hope it's quality is better than my son's Chrysler product, a minivan. It's 3 years old and falling apart. My boss said his son has a Jeep (Chrysler product) and each of the 4 windows fell down, requiring a $475 each repair. The same thing happened to my son's van.

My '99 BMW has had very few repairs and almost everything is still original, other than a battery and tires. I'd never, ever buy a Chrysler product.

[LogansPapa]

I’ve only ever seen Vipers next to me for a couple of short seconds. The rest of the time they’re cute little things fading from sight in my rear view mirror.

[Eyelids]

Why would anybody buy an American car?

[John]

It seems they are selling their only profitable brand. Great move.

I'm actually quite the Mopar fan, and selling Viper is not selling their only profitable brand. Viper isn't a brand, it's a model. The brand is Dodge. The Chrysler Group is only recently an American company again. Cerberus bought it from Daimler (Mercedes) back in 2007 for a steal with some provisions. I'm not an financial analyst, but I'd speculate that the Mercedes brand has been kept in the black for many years through Dodge sales. All Dodge vehicles sold prior to 2007 were required to have a certain percentage of the Mercedes parts bin installed. This includes my truck which rocks a Mercedes 5 speed automatic transmission, a Mercedes rear differential and the blessed Mercedes ECS. These parts were bought by the Chrysler group at the expense of red ink, and sold by Daimler at the gain of black ink.

Cerberus has assured Dodge,Chrysler & Jeep customers that they aren't going to part off and liquidate the company. That doesn't mean I believe them, as they've also hinted at selling off the company to GM. However, part of the deal was that production cars that bought Mercedes parts would continue to use those Mercedes parts throughout their production cycle. I'm guessing that this has been a huge burden on Cerberus, and a huge profit for Mercedes. Daimler no longer needs to fund R&D for Chrysler, yet Chrysler must continue to work around the same part costs for future models.

I guess Cerberus's plan was pretty straight forward, start introducing new models while cutting out the old Mercedes dependent models. We saw the Magnum go away, to be replaced with nothing. The neon was traded for the Caliber in model year '07, The Charger replaced the Intrepid as the 4 door sedan, and I'm not entirely sure Mercedes can lay claim to the Charger as a model requiring Mercedes parts, as the Charger is actually a '64 model car. The 300C is also another late model car which would otherwise require Mercedes parts had they not actually been introduced in the '60's. The Sebring was originally a Mitsubishi car.

Like I said, I'm not analyst, but it looks like the Chrysler Group, under the command of Cerberus, is trying to break free of Daimler obligations while retaining brand name recognition and consumer loyalty.

Either way, I think Cerberus wants to wean itself from reliance on the Mercedes' parts bin as soon as possible. I expect the Challenger to replace the Viper in the performance sector. I fully expect Dodge to stop offering SUV's and off road vehicles that compete with Jeep. Self competition isn't a good thing. I think the future of Chrysler will go something like this:

Dodge: Work trucks, fleet trucks, passengers cars in the sedan to compact range, and of course, muscle & sport tuner.
Jeep: SUVs, 4x4 off road trucks, and something to compete with Range Rover & Suburban in that market.
Chrysler: Luxury sedans, coupes and something to compete with Mercedes/Infinity/BMW performance sedans.

I just hope I get my hands on a Chrysler Aspen before this type of conversion happens.

[John]

Why would anybody buy an American car?

Come over to my house. I'll let you drive my Nitro R/T, and then, maybe let you drive my '77.5 Corvette L82 Stingray. When you're done with all that, I'll let you drive my '70 Mopar Performance Dart Swinger. Once you feel that sort of American Muscle, you'll question why you didn't want to drive one in the first place. In these types of vehicles, you don't steer with the wheel, you steer with the throttle*. It's a life altering experience.

Oh, and if that's not good enough for you, my friend Steven has a 10.2 second SRT4 Neon that might satisfy your sport tuner needs. Being front wheel drive and all, you'll still be steering with the wheel. if you can keep up.

*Unless you're driving the Nitro. It's fast as all hell, but I'll be damned if I can break loose a tire without the Electronic Stability Program (ESP) kicking in and hitting my brakes, cutting my fuel and even when "off", forcing break induced under steering on my behalf. The trucks quick as all get out, fast as a trailblazer SS or an Infiity glorified station wagon, if only it wouldn't cut fuel and break for you! Note to future carmakers...."off" should mean god damned "off"!

[Zathras]

Why would anybody buy an American car?

I've had an American car, a 97 Saturn SL2, for 8 years now and it's been a great car, no problems whatsoever.

[lacarnut]

I’ve only ever seen Vipers next to me for a couple of short seconds. The rest of the time they’re cute little things fading from sight in my rear view mirror.

The 2009 Z1 Corvette will eat that AC lunch at 3.4 to 60 and 205mph top speed. For a little over 100 grand, it will whip your car on and off the track like a red headed stepchild. Note to self, there is always something faster. :)