Text 14676, 108 rader
Skriven 2011-03-01 14:36:22 av Roy Witt (1:387/22)
  Kommentar till text 14651 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: LOL! Svedes...
======================
01 Mar 11 08:52, Robert Bashe wrote to Roy Witt:

 RB> Roy Witt wrote to Robert Bashe on Monday February 28 2011 at 13:49:

 RW>> Doesn't Fiat own a part of or most of VW?

 RB> Oh, no! They have nothing to do with VW or any other German
 RB> manufacturer. What they _have_ done is to license production in
 RB> eastern European countries even before 1990: the Russians and Poles
 RB> both had their versions of the Fiat in those days, both older models,
 RB> as I remember. And now I recently read that Fiat plans to start up
 RB> manufacture in Russia under it's own name. I don't know how far that
 RB> has progressed, though.

Most certainly what they build will be better than the car the commies
built in Yugoslavia. The Yugo?

 RW>> Perhaps the people at Chrysler will have an audience with Fiat in
 RW>> how to build a car, rather than the idiots from MB who made Chrysler
 RW>> tow the German line and do things their way. Afterall, Chrysler was
 RW>> an innovater of many automotive inventions in its days before MB
 RW>> came along.

 RB> You can probably say the same for most car manufacturers who have
 RB> survived to the present (and some who didn't - Studebaker and
 RB> Borgward come to mind). The problem with Chrysler and MB was simply
 RB> the difference in corporate attitudes. Put simply, they didn't get
 RB> along and didn't really want to work together, so they didn't. The
 RB> marriage was unhappy on both sides, and the divorce was a blessing
 RB> for both.

Studebaker's demise was due in part to building great cars like they were
still in the 1930s (big and heavy). That and their merge with Packard, who
continued the same trend until the day they went under. One of
Studebaker's better ideas, the Hawks and Avanti, predated the Mustang and
Camaro. Too bad America wasn't ready for them yet.

 RW>> PS - it was once rumored that GM (who has made a complete recovery
 RW>> and paid back the government) was going to bail out Chrysler. Which
 RW>> GM denied. Perhaps they have, in their own peculiar way, as GM owns
 RW>> 40% of Fiat.

 RB> It does?

Whoops.

General Motors owns:
-Buick
-Cadillac
-Chevrolet
-Daewoo (GM owns 44%)
-Fiat (GM has decided to divorce itself from Fiat as of Feb '05, but will
retain 10% ownership.)

Down to 10% now.

 RB> Seems a bit strange to me... what would GM's benefit be from
 RB> that?

The same benefit they get from owning Frigidaire and other companies. $$$

 RB> They import Opel cars from Germany as re-branded "compacts", but
 RB> somehow I can't see them importing Fiats.

How about if they imported any of the below?

Fiat owns:
-Alfa Romeo
-Ferrari
-Fiat
-Lancia
-Maserati

There are a lot of Ferrari' running around this country. Not so much
Maserati and Alfas.

 RB>  And as to the marketing situation, Fiat is big in Italy and (I
 RB> believe) eastern Europe, but is not really a big moneymaker.

Look at the exotics they make. The only one that is cheap to buy is the
Fiat and maybe the Lancia. I've always liked the looks and performance of
the Alfa, but I wouldn't own one.

 RB> At any rate, all I can say is that the ADAC (local version of the
 RB> AAA) puts out a list of reliability ratings of the various car makers
 RB> and models each year, based on the problems the ADAC road service has
 RB> to fix, and Fiat has been at the very bottom of that list for as long
 RB> as I've been an ADAC member (meanwhile around 35 years).

We have an outfit called Consumers Reports who rate everything not made in
Japan as undesirable. I don't pay any attention to their recommendations
because I can see the prejudice in their reporting. But, they sell
magazines and there are fools who buy it and so they probably make enough
to survive.

 RB>  The brand doesn't have much of a reputation in Germany, but that
 RB> naturally can be a question of national attitudes and inclinations.

Yeup. But if you ask the consumer, he may enlighten you to the truth,
where the ADAC will show some prejudice just because a car isn't made by a
German manufacturer.

                R\%/itt

  Fox News was not used as a source for information in this message!

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