Never Stop Driving #116: Jerry Springer Comes to Motown

What the fudge is happening at the automaker formerly known as Chrysler? It’s chaos over at Stellantis, which owns Ram, Jeep, Dodge, Chrysler, Alfa, Peugeot, and a bunch of other brands sold around the world. U.S. dealers penned an open letter claiming that reckless short-term decisions made by CEO Carlos Tavares left them “anemic and diminished.” Last month, a group of shareholders sued the company for not revealing rising inventories of unsold vehicles. The UAW is delivering a third punch by threatening to strike over rumors that promised U.S. car production will happen elsewhere, with UAW president Shawn Fain declaring that “Carlos Tavares is the problem.” I tell ya, it’s high drama in Detroit—it’s like Jerry Springer live!

I first met Tavares when he was a rising executive at Nissan. He seemed intelligent and highly competent and blessedly lacked the hubris often seen in other auto executives, so his ascension to a top job wasn’t a surprise. Today I wonder if he’s doing what a leader must do, which is to make unpopular but necessary hard decisions, or if he and his management team are, as Fain suggested, “out of control.”

Rank-and-file employees I know suggest the latter is closer to the truth. They’re speaking for the part of Stellantis better known as Chrysler, the smallest of the longtime Detroit Big Three. During my lifetime, Chrysler has always been the car company that gets kicked around every decade or so but then emerges, triumphant, from near disaster. Think back to the late 1970s and early 1980s when Lee Iacocca steered the company out of insolvency, with a generous assist from Uncle Sam. In those dark days, Chrysler engineers, backs to the proverbial wall, morphed the modest K car into the sporty Daytona coupe, a variety of sedans and wagons, and, most important, the first minivan. That sharing strategy was a bean counter’s dream and made the company so flush that it was able to repay the Feds early. By 1985, Iacocca was able to snap up Gulfstream, followed by Lamborghini in 1987.

I got to know Chrysler even better in the early Nineties when I joined Car and Driver and about the time product chief Bob Lutz’s influence started bearing fruit. The cars were interesting and among the domestics always had a consistent sprightly feel from behind the wheel. We tested cars at Chrysler’s proving grounds in Chelsea, Michigan, outside of Detroit and I’d often encounter engineers I’d met at local racetracks out there testing. I could see their dedication to the cars and their joy in the work. You could feel their collective spirit in even the least expensive models, like the Dodge Neon. Executives such as Lutz and design chief Tom Gale understood that outrageous sports cars like the Viper and the Plymouth Prowler provided not just news clips but also internal pride that filtered into all the products.

From 1978, when Iacocca arrived at Chrysler after being booted from the Ford Motor Company by none other than Henry Ford II himself, to 1998, Chrysler had a helluva run. Then the company merged with Daimler-Benz and Lutz exited. The so-called “merger of equals” was really a takeover as Daimler owned 57 percent of the company, now called DaimlerChrysler. In August 2023 I went to a car show assembled to honor Lutz. Many of the Chrysler engineers and executives I knew from the Nineties were there and their bitterness over the merger surprised me. When the Germans took over, they recalled, passion left the halls of Chrysler and nothing but the bottom line mattered.

I’ve seen time and time again how executives without passion for the car business fail. That’s not universal, as evidenced by Alan Mulally, who took over the helm at Ford after a highly successful career at Boeing, back when Boeing was synonymous with engineering excellence. And to be clear, it takes more than a love of cars to successfully run an automaker and please Wall Street, dealers, and consumers. Yet the best auto company leaders always seem truly to love the business. Perhaps the bottom line follows passion?

In May 2007, a hobbled Chrysler was ignominiously sold off to a private equity firm called Cerberus for $7.4 billion. The 2008 financial meltdown brought bankruptcy and another savior, Sergio Marchionne, who arrived from a forced marriage to Fiat. Marchionne was no car guy but was smart enough to listen to U.S. executives who knew the products. Under his tenure, the company thrived again, leaning into muscle cars with Dodge Hellcats, fielding an expanded lineup of highly profitable Jeeps, and creating a Ram pickup that was so compelling that I personally bought two of them.

Now we’re back to another low. People I know who stayed with the company over the decades report that this new struggle is different because the rank and file are not on board with Carlos Tavares’ plans for a future lineup dominated by EVs. Most agreed with Akio Toyoda of Toyota, who displayed genuine leadership years ago when he opined that the rush to EVs was misguided and hybrids are a better short-term solution. Nearly every car company is rolling back aggressive EV plans. The worst I heard from my sources within Stellantis is that many employees are simply waiting for the inevitable Tavares replacement. This week there were reports that the search is already underway. In the meantime, the troops are just short of mutiny. As I’ve said many times, the auto industry is rarely boring.

Before I sign off, let me suggest some of my favorite new updates from Hagerty Media and beyond. As always, if you’d like to support our efforts to spread car passion, please join the Hagerty Drivers Club.

• The Ferrari restoration that keeps kicking me in the face.
• Will the Corvette always be a Chevy?
• New Mustangs include a free driving school.
• Did you see the zipline video from the Watkins Glen race? It’s incredible.
• This latest TikTok case could upend social media. We can hope.

This driver profile from Steven Cole Smith, published this week, needs to be a movie: Dirt Track Legend Scott Bloomquist Died as He Lived: Full Throttle

Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend!

Larry

P.S.: Your feedback and comments are welcome.   

Please share this newsletter with your car-obsessed friends and encourage them to sign up for the free weekly email. The easy-to-complete signup page is here. And if you’d like to support the efforts of Hagerty Media, please consider joining the Hagerty Drivers Club.