Chrysler

DETROIT -- Since their 1998 merger creating the world's fifth-largest automaker, Mercedes Benz and Chrysler have seemed to be sitting at either end of a trans-Atlantic seesaw. When Chrysler was down, Mercedes was up. Then, a reinvigorated Chrysler helped the company stay profitable last year while it fixed problems at Mercedes. Now, Mercedes has become the heavyweight again, as Chrysler grapples with slumping sales that it blames on high fuel prices and intense competition in the United States.

The Grand Prix of Baltimore has landed its largest sponsor to date, officials said Wednesday. Called a "presenting sponsor," Chrysler Group's Street and Racing Technology - SRT - will be added to the race's official logo. The sponsorship will bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars, officials said, but not as much as a title sponsorship, which runs more than $1 million. Officials with Race On LLC, the group putting on the city's race, would not discuss specific dollar amounts.

NEW YORK -- DaimlerChrysler AG, the world's fifth-largest carmaker, is cutting second-half shipments 15 percent at its U.S.-based Chrysler unit because of declining sales of pickups and sport utility vehicles. The automaker plans to ship about 705,000 Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles to U.S. dealers, compared with 829,000 for the July-December period a year earlier, the company said yesterday. Chrysler had planned to ship 840,000 cars and trucks this half. "We were hoping that we could find our way out of this situation by continuously reducing our production, but not significantly, and increasing our sales," said DaimlerChrysler Chief Executive Officer Dieter Zetsche in a conference call.

I didn't see Clint Eastwood's Super Bowl commercial for Chrysler - after Madonna's grotesque halftime performance, I turned the game off. Yet I couldn't miss the Monday morning fallout ("Critics go gunning for Eastwood spot," Feb. 7). I don't consider his ad political - I consider it insulting to Americans who are not enjoying any "halftime. " It might have occurred to Mr. Eastwood and the Chrysler honchos they should have spent their advertising dollars and creative talent thanking U.S. taxpayers for the bailout.

DETROIT -- News that DaimlerChrysler AG was discussing the possibility of selling the Chrysler unit to General Motors Corp. cheered its mostly German stockholder base yesterday, but drew jeers elsewhere. Analysts and industry executives questioned why GM, whose own turnaround efforts are still under way, would use some of its $26.4 billion in cash raised by selling profitable assets such as GMAC to buy another unprofitable North American automaker. The companies declined to comment on the reports.

WASHINGTON - Chrysler's path to recovery cleared a major roadblock ahead of Thursday night's government-imposed deadline when the struggling automaker's largest bondholders agreed Tuesday to significantly reduce its debt. That deal and the expectation that the United Auto Workers will ratify a labor pact Wednesday increase the likelihood that Italian automaker Fiat will buy Chrysler and save it from financial collapse. But even if Fiat takes over, Chrysler might still enter government-backed bankruptcy to resolve some of its toughest outstanding issues, including a sharp reduction of its 3,300 U.S. dealers.

DETROIT -- As DaimlerChrysler AG shops the Chrysler Group, potential bidders are looking long and hard at billions of dollars in looming retiree pension and health care costs often buried beneath financial results the company highlights publicly. When DaimlerChrysler reports financial results, it stresses operating profits or losses for each group, which do not fully take into account future retiree pension and benefit expenses. But a note in the annual report provides a breakdown of the expenses, giving a glimpse of how difficult it will be for anyone to turn a profit with the automaker.

DETROIT - General Motors is in preliminary talks about a possible merger with Chrysler, a deal that could drastically remake the landscape of the auto industry by reducing the Big Three of Detroit automakers to the Big Two. The talks between GM and Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm that owns Chrysler, began more than a month ago, and the negotiations are not certain to produce a deal. Two people close to the process said the chances of a merger were "50-50" as of yesterday and would most likely still take weeks to work out. A merger would be a historic event, with two of the most iconic names in American industry coming together to survive in an increasingly difficult environment.

The old cliche "you can't take it with you" has a painful new meaning for Lee Iacocca, one that could cost the former chairman and chief executive of Chrysler Corp. nearly $32 million.Chrysler's board, angered at his alliance with Kirk Kerkorian's attempt to take over the automaker, has refused to allow Mr. Iacocca to exercise stock options he received after retiring from Chrysler in 1992, the company said in a document filed yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.According to the filing, the directors determined that Mr. Iacocca violated the terms of the stock option plan by assisting Mr. Kerkorian, the company's largest shareholder, in his recent failed takeover bid for the company and in a subsequent offer for Chrysler shares that Mr. Kerkorian announced last month.

Chrysler Corp. began notifying owners this week of a third recall in 10 months of its relatively new Jeep Grand Cherokee sport-utility vehicle.Word of the recall comes as Chrysler is recovering from financial hard times but continuing to struggle to overcome an image of inferior quality.Priced between $20,000 and more than $30,000, the Grand Cherokee is one of the most modern of light trucks and was critically acclaimed when it was introduced for the 1993 model year. All three recalls involve 1993 models, including the nearly identical but now discontinued Grand Wagoneer version.

Anne Arundel County Police have identified a pedestrian who was struck and killed early Sunday morning while trying to cross a road in Glen Burnie. James William King Sr., 45, of no fixed address, was fatally hit on Furnace Branch Road. At about 3:29 a.m., county police and fire departments responded to a report of a crash involving a pedestrian in the area of South Meadow Road, police said. Upon arrival, officers found a 1999 Chrysler 300 stopped in the northbound lane near the double yellow line, police said.

After cranking the engine to circulate its motor oil and spraying a couple shots of starter fluid under the hood, Sherman Taffel held his breath as he inserted the key. His 1962 Buick Skylark — the first car with a lightweight, aluminum V8 engine — roared to life with a single turn of the ignition. After sitting outdoors since November, it rumbled contentedly on a bed of dry leaves, raring to go. "That's how you wake up an engine that's been sitting idle," said Taffel, a retired Baltimore city educator and an expert and vintage cars.

Let's see: The Bush administration inherits a budget surplus, racks up record deficits, and more than doubles the national debt. No tea partiers. Through lax regulations, our economic house of cards comes tumbling down and Wall St., GM, and Chrysler are bailed out by the Bush administration. No tea partiers. President Obama enters office on Jan. 20, 2009. Within about a month we get the Tea Partiers. Perhaps Ron Smith is correct. Perhaps there is no racism involved. Perhaps it's only stupidity.

Ayers Saint Gross, a Baltimore-based architecture and planning firm, has been hired to recommend ways to redevelop the former Chrysler automobile assembly plant in Newark, Del. The University of Delaware acquired the 272-acre property and plans to replace it with a high-tech campus for research, business and academics as an extension of its main campus in Newark. The university has asked Ayers Saint Gross to develop a vision for the Chrysler site and how it could fit with the rest of the university's real estate holdings.

Car dealers and manufacturers said the federal "Cash for Clunkers" program did its job in giving a much-needed boost to the struggling industry, but now they're bracing to see how long-lasting the effects will be. The program, which gave consumers as much as $4,500 to junk their inefficient vehicles for new models, ended at 8 p.m Monday with the Department of Transportation estimating that 700,000 to 800,000 vehicles sold under the program in just a...

Fiat closes deal to take bulk of Chrysler's assets Italy's Fiat is the new owner of most of Chrysler's assets, closing a deal Wednesday that saves the troubled U.S. automaker from liquidation and places a new company in the hands of Fiat's CEO. The deal creates a leaner company known as Chrysler Group LLC, which is not in bankruptcy protection and is free of billions of debt, 789 underperforming dealerships and burdensome labor costs that hobbled the...

Ayers Saint Gross, a Baltimore-based architecture and planning firm, has been hired to recommend ways to redevelop the former Chrysler automobile assembly plant in Newark, Del. The University of Delaware acquired the 272-acre property and plans to replace it with a high-tech campus for research, business and academics as an extension of its main campus in Newark. The university has asked Ayers Saint Gross to develop a vision for the Chrysler site and how it could fit with the rest of the university's real estate holdings.

In the latest skirmish in the credit card wars, Ford Motor Co. said yesterday that one of its financial services units would offer a credit card as a marketing tool to help retain old Ford customers and attract new ones.But Chrysler Corp. may also be planning to enter the credit card business, according to The American Banker, a trade publication.Unlike the Ford program, Chrysler's effort would be for private-label cards that would not carry the Chrysler logo but rather the name of a furniture store or similar issuer, the publication said.

Laurel Dodge sold its last Chrysler brand car, an Avenger, on Monday, and general manager Elias Kymingham got word a day later that incorporation papers to change the name of the dealership had been processed. It's the end of an era for Laurel Dodge, which has been doing business with Chrysler since the 1960s. The dealership was among 789, including 15 in Maryland, that lost franchise agreements with Chrysler as the financially troubled carmaker looks to cut costs and restructure into a smaller, more efficient company.

WASHINGTON - -In a surprise move, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a temporary delay Monday in the bankruptcy sale of Chrysler to Italian automaker Fiat, saying it needed more time to decide on complaints that the government-engineered deal is unfair to some bondholders. The one-line order from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg raised the possibility that the court could halt the sale and force the Chrysler deal to be renegotiated. Such a move could complicate the much larger General Motors bankruptcy.