The 2017 New York International Auto Show was full of new debuts, but it’s been responsible for a few hypothetical scenarios and rumors surrounding Fiat Chrysler Autos. The cash-strapped automaker’s CEO, Sergio Marchionne, has long been on the hunt for a merger to seal his legacy ahead of his rumored retirement next year.
But, Marchionne has since called off his search, stating he’s now concerned with leaving FCA debt free. In the process, he’s even said he’s open to selling off Jeep and Ram, the automaker’s money printers. Volkswagen and General Motors were brought up in the discussion, according to Fiat-Chrysler Authority.
Now, here’s the latest rumor. GM and FCA do merge, and Fiat Auto becomes the new GM Europe to replace what the automaker most recently sold off with its Opel and Vauxhall brands. In North America and abroad, Chrysler is diluted and Dodge becomes GM’s reborn Pontiac. Meanwhile, Ram is merged with GMC and Jeep, Alfa Romeo, and Maserati would remain standalone brands.
It’s likely a long-shot, and the rumors are fairly unsubstantiated, but they do find ground after Marchionne simply replied “Yes” when asked if he would sell Ram, Jeep or both to GM. If only a few brands were sold off, though, FCA wouldn’t have much to offer in an all-out merger.
It’s yet another wave crashing in the storm of Marchionne’s darting behavior. Previously, the Italian-Canadian executive said GM was less attractive as a merging partner after selling Opel and Vauxhall. GM has previously outright denied any intention to merge with FCA.
Comments
GM should buy Jeep.
Sell Chrysler to Elon Musk.
Throw everything else on the trash heap on top of Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Plymouth, Mercury, Deusenberg, and Oakland.
Agree. Jeep is the only brand worth keeping around. Sell it alongside GMCs. Chrysler – dump it. Dodge – merge it with Chevy performance division. Ram – dump the trucks and keep the vans.
There was times I thought it would happen, but not anymore. Unless GM dumping Opel/Vauxhall was to create room for something bigger.
You can’t dump Ram’s significant market share. There is no guarantee than former Ram shoppers would migrate to GMC.
FCA dealers aren’t closing. They would fight, and win. Every old Chrysler brand has great potential with these vehicles being sold as FIAT in other markets such as Europe.
Alfa should be sold. Masserati should use GM technology.
Alfa romeo and Maserati are at the top for technology and engines, developed together with Ferrari and CRF that supports Ferrari in formual 1.
The only brand of value here is Jeep. Off-roading is the only market that GM does not have its hands in. With a booming SUV market and people’s love of rugged off-road capability (that is almost never used), it would be a great acquisition.
As for the other brands:
GM has two trucks already. Ram does not bring anything with it. The only thing left with Dodge are Charger and Challenger. Chevy would have nothing to gain from them, other than to eliminate them from the market and fill the void with Camaro and a new SS sedan. Chrysler is useless.
Alpha Romeo and Maserati are toss ups. Their potential all depends on what GM has in store for Corvette and Cadillac.
you forgot, the FIAT division is also useless.
Gino, you’re being kind.
I agree with Jeep being a valuable brand (I’d love for a Chevy direct competitor to the Grand Cherokee with a V8 to replace my TrailBlazer V8 at some point). Additionally, Ram has become quite popular at this point. Two months in a row now, they’ve outsold Silverado. As a Chevy dealer, that concerns me. Could there be things Chevy/GMC could utilize from the Ram brand to make our trucks better, and gain market share against Ford? I’m sure this will be highly unpopular here, but I still see value in the Pacifica offering. Chevrolet is definitely missing a part of that action, and a minivan offering would be a great addition to the lineup. I agree with everyone else on the rest of the points.
Sergio has turned Ram into a powerhouse. The growth has been massive.
Pacific as well as old Grand Caravan represent more than half of all minivans sold.
Jeep speaks for itself, and Dodge and Chrysler DO have potential.
Tom, I don’t think you’re out-to-lunch at all. Steve is right on what has become of Ram, and there are some really good innovations that I wish Chevy/GMC would include. Ram also has a very well designed interior aesthetic, that the other three brands do not. Ram could learn some quality and reliability points from Chevy/GMC. I think that GM could easily run all three brands, mostly independent of the others. Also, on that topic, if there was ever a rebranding argument for dropping Pontiac, how was GMC not dumped instead. Pontiac had the Soltice and G6. Nothing that GMC makes is unique to the brand. Keep the Ram and Jeep brands and ditch the rest. If anything about the Charger/Challenger pair should be kept it would be the “Hellcat” option.
I did not read that Sergio ever said yes to if he would sell both Jeep and Ram to GM, he simply said “yes” to if he would ever be inteterested in selling them and moved onto another subject. To what I read GM was never mentioned. I could be wrong.
GM’s leadership could not handle Europe with two very established brands what makes anyone think they would do any better with FCA.
Call me everything you want, but I think Dodge is the best division/brand of FCA. If GM bought everything close to Dodge (HEMI and Mopar) and kept it exclusive to Dodge, it would make lots of money.
Dodge cars are far from inexpensive. Hellcats are a huge success. Dodge has a Titanic size fan base…
GM doesn’t need to spend billions buying Jeep/RAM. All they need to do is to give GMC a competitor to Wrangler and Grand Cherokee.
A new Syclone would also be very interesting. The powertrain is already here.
Anyway, too bad Chrysler can’t catch a break.
Didn’t Mary Barra recently say that she is looking forward to future cooperation with PSA?
That seems by for more probable.
Here is the problem
Yes the Jeep name and Wrangler/Grand Cherokee hold global equity. But everything else not so much.
Then who ever buys Jeep will need to invest as they will not want to sell Fiat and or Chryslers platforms or engines. That could be billions.
The feast of FCA is worthless as it all needs updated or replaced. Even the updated Alfa is a money pit as they are no where near volume Sergio said he needed from them.
I would love to see Chevy or GMC take on Jeep with a Hummer light kind of vehicle and it would be much easier to fund and not have all the added baggage of FCA.
Scott, exactly….A lot better to just build a Jeep/Hummer-like vehicle under GMC, then take on the baggage of FCA.
It’s a bit sad that Sergio and the admin there have let Chrysler wither down to a 2 vehicle line (the 300 & Pacifica) and also watch them neglect Dodge with those old platforms. (Btw, all the cars are disappearing from Dodge’s line-up…The Avenger, Dart and Viper are all gone)
Dart ends after MY 2017.
If FCA would have really focused on Dodge being the Volume brand they would maybe be in better shape.
It seems like they were going to let FIAT or even Alfa be the volume brand or transitioning into that?
I actually don’t know what went so wrong with FCA…obviously one this is neglecting platforms for Dodge. The fat-assed Challenger was to have a new generation offered for 2018, that has been pushed to 2021…if it happens.
The Demon is all smoke & mirrors….if you look through it, you can almost hear Dodge or the Chrysler division’s death rattle.
The Italians are discovering what the Germans discovered. You can put computers into anything you want, do all kinds of crazy stuff, and it all still boils down to one thing. The problem is culture. Europe has one culture and America has another. Neither particularly appreciates the other. The wheels came off of MB/C, just like they are going to come off of FCA.
Jeep would be something GM should get but again I’m not so sure if that’s a good idea as their models would canabalize some of the GMC models
Most of the comments above focus solely on North America, whereas this idea is being floated to address a future European vacuum for GM.
Fiat operates at the lower segment of the market with little appeal to Northern European customers with higher expectations. GM has not done well in the smaller car segments and is better suited just below the premium segment where the Rekord/Omega and wagon models were well established. But this sector evaporated and Opel was unable to find another sector that was equally profitable.
As such Fiat offers little for GM to operate in Europe. Fiat is the leader in Brazil, so there may be benefits in this region for a GM alliance, but this is too small a component to influence a global approach.
this is a good point, but FCA still has way more to gain from GM.
GM is strong in NA and China.
GM’s sales have slumped in South America lately, but their presence is still strong.
The European market is more of a headache and GM seems to be making a decision to not deal with it.
@LouisF “better suited just below the premium segment where the Rekord/Omega and wagon models were well established. ”
Actually the most produced models are the Corsa and Astra with in 2016 together 571,205 new car registrations in Europe, and then Mokka with 170,294 out of a total of 1,158,340. The 2 important compact and subcompact models thus make up 49.3% of the total. Insignia accounts only for 81,436 units, i.e. 7%.
That’s my point, Opel has been losing money because there is less margin in the smaller model sectors where Opel now finds itself.
The German and possibly international press reports today that K.T. Neumann, Opel CEO, had said yesterday at a conference organized by Price-Waterhouse-Cooper that the cars developed on PSA platforms are the most cost-effective. They had to tweak the GM-platforms to get somethink suitable for their nees, which was driving costs up.
Well, I don’t know – KTN can only refer to the Mokka and Karl, since the platforms of Astra and Insignia had been developed in house in Rüsselsheim and the current Corsa sits on a platform developed together with FIAT, back when GM and FIAT had a stake in each others capital.
Here are some issues. Chrysler other than Jeep and some low volume high profile models is starved for product. The cars are out dated and they have no small cars.
They sell minivans but the segment is dying faster than sedans due to the CUV.
Still massive quality issues and the lowest return buyer percentage other than Mitsubishi.
Alfa is a money pit needing a ton more sales to be profitable. Masurati not really a profit center.
Fiat sales are under performing here, Latin America and in Europe.
They suffer massive over capacity and lack. Any real effort to control cost other than not developing much new product. How much longer can they delay the LX replacements.
The Hemi’s future is clouded and lack much development. The LT is do far advanced compared to the so called Hemi.
Jeep is a name not seen as American and that holds equity. The wrangler is like the Mini where it is limited in design but it gets a free pass as people like it. The other small Jeep models are just rehashed Fiat models few care about.
The only two real markets that matter are NA and China. NA provides money but little growth. China is about the only growth out there.
Soon there will be more used cars on the market than buyers so cheap lease turn in models along with lower demand will change how auto makers operate. Those who worked to improve atp that can handle lower volumes utilizing cost controls roll win. Those who have not done this will struggle.
GM has no need for more brands. They need to be smart with new product.
The only real buyer for FCA is VW and they will wait for the fire sale. The are structured yo deal with their issues as they are geared for volumes and multi brands. If it works VW will look like heros but if it goes bad it will really be bad. The Deisel Almost hit them but they got off easy with the public.
Toyota is doing well but has no need for FCA and Ford is doing ok but needs to work more on controlling cost.
And their minivan is based on the Cherokee which is based on the Dart/200 from what I was told
All Fiat and not class leading other than the mini van that is dying.
The Dart and 200 will die too.
The Dart/200 are already out of production aka died
GM will realise what they have done when they sell off Vauxhall & Opel 🙁
It would be a great idea to break away from Chrysler if there is a chance.
My vehicle was at the dealership in service for SEVEN weeks. Chrysler was willing to chip in $0 because they ‘Just couldn’t do it’. My vehicle is less than ten years old but due to the year and mileage of my vehicle Chrysler was not willing to help in any sort of way. No incentives and no rental.
When my check engine light turned on my twins girls were three weeks old, this left my wife at home with no vehicle. If an emergency happened she would have been stuck at home because I need a vehicle to go to work.
Waited four weeks for a part to find out that part was faulty, but I wasn’t told this, I was told the vehicle went into limp mode and are still looking into the issues. This was a stall tactic to wait on that same part to arrive two weeks later.
I have always owned a Dodge vehicle, 20 years, and have taken my vehicle to have serviced for 10 of those when I bought a new Dodge vehicle. I also have been taking my wife’s vehicle in here for service for 7 years. I have been a loyal customer but due to this service, or lack of, I blame Chrysler for their terrible customer care.
Due to this horrific experience I will no longer be purchasing a Chrysler product.
I see on the contrary a long term cooperation between PSA and GM. The acquisition of Opel by PSA is not done in order to end the cooperation agreement concluded in 2012 (or 2011?), but to deepen it.
From the March 6, 2017 press release “Opel/Vauxhall to join PSA Group”:
In the 2016 PSA report is also talk about OnStar.
For the place of Jeep and Ram in FCA’s long term plans, check fcagroup.com