https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/chrysler/2019/05/27/fca-renault-merger-announced/1246855001/
Not a done deal yet.
"Fiat Chrysler Automobiles early Monday outlined a detailed plan to merge with French automaker Renault, which responded "with interest." "
....Again?
Ooof..
It's the automotive version of all the armies of Mordor coming together.
Scary thing is, this will make the largest automaker in the world. Think about that for a minute.
The return of LeCar
Curious how interested Nissan really is to be draged into this...
Renualt-Mitsubushi-Fiat-Chrysler-Autovaz-Dacia-Nissan?
For companies that mostly do few things exceptional/unique, why duplicate efforts performing the same mediocre work? These brands mostly deal with mainline vehicles and have different strengths, as well as regional market strengths. Much of the auto industry profits are generated by premium brands. IMO a merger and alliance of the unexceptional and distributed makes a lot of sense.
There is a lot of market concentration occurring in other sectors of the economy. In my cases there are a few large players and a number of small players picking up the scraps. In today's world, it's shocking how many different mediocre auto companies exist.
Snrub said:There is a lot of market concentration occurring in other sectors of the economy. In my cases there are a few large players and a number of small players picking up the scraps. In today's world, it's shocking how many different mediocre auto companies exist.
Quoted for Truth.
How did that work the first time? Renault bought AMC, and then Chrysler bought AMC back? Was Renault ever a partner or owner of Mother Mopar?
Thats 1980 or so...
Streetwiseguy said:How did that work the first time? Renault bought AMC, and then Chrysler bought AMC back? Was Renault ever a partner or owner of Mother Mopar?
Thats 1980 or so...
I'm sure I'll be corrected if I am wrong, but IIRC Renault bought AMC/Jeep largely on the strength of the Jeep name, which is roughly when AM General was split off since we couldn't have our military vehicles made by a foreign-owned company. Then Renault decided to leave the US market and sold AMC to Chrysler, largely on the strength of the Jeep name, and part of that deal was Renault would continue to sell cars through Jeep/Eagle dealerships, first as Renaults, and later as Eagles (Remember the Premier?)
Later of course Mercedes would buy Chrysler, largely on the strength of the Jeep name, and then Fiat bought Chrysler, largely on the strength of the Jeep name...
I am sensing a pattern.
In reply to Knurled. :
That sure sounds right, now that you lay it out. I'd forgotten about the Eagle nameplate. It became the catch all for their captive imports, because up here we never saw a Mitsubishi, but we had lots of Eagle Talons and whatever the Mitsu V6 awd thing was called. The premier was a gem, but it gave the Delorean people someplace to find a stroker crank...
Are Renault & Nissan still a thing, or did they split up?
In reply to Pete Gossett :
I expect to see a HEMI EVO
noddaz said:Renualt-Mitsubushi-Fiat-Chrysler-Autovaz-Dacia-Nissan?
I’d like to see that logo on a tailgate in the same way RAM is blasting us in the face nowadays:
The merger would also mean that F1 goes from three independent engine makers, to 2- as Ferrari and Renault would be the same corporate board.
Pete Gossett said:Are Renault & Nissan still a thing, or did they split up?
I think they're pretty deep into "it's complicated" territory. You don't just have FCA, Renault, and Nissan that have to work things out, you also have the French and Italian governments as partial share holders of companies involved, and they're both going to have requirements for the deal to work.
(In my best James May voice) Does this mean that we'll soon be getting the new Dacia Sandero?
Knurled. said:Streetwiseguy said:How did that work the first time? Renault bought AMC, and then Chrysler bought AMC back? Was Renault ever a partner or owner of Mother Mopar?
Thats 1980 or so...
I'm sure I'll be corrected if I am wrong, but IIRC Renault bought AMC/Jeep largely on the strength of the Jeep name, which is roughly when AM General was split off since we couldn't have our military vehicles made by a foreign-owned company. Then Renault decided to leave the US market and sold AMC to Chrysler, largely on the strength of the Jeep name, and part of that deal was Renault would continue to sell cars through Jeep/Eagle dealerships, first as Renaults, and later as Eagles (Remember the Premier?)
Later of course Mercedes would buy Chrysler, largely on the strength of the Jeep name, and then Fiat bought Chrysler, largely on the strength of the Jeep name...
I am sensing a pattern.
My grandfather was a longtime engineer at Chrysler who retired and then was given an extremely generous offer to return a little while after the AMC sale( or AMC take-over of Chrysler, depending on who you ask). He usually had some pretty good insight on why Chrysler made the deal.
IIRC, and as you pointed out, getting Jeep was the big one. Cherokees and Wranglers were selling like hotcakes, the ZJ Grand Cherokee was in the pipeline and Chrylser would be able to fund it, and I guess the profit margins on the Grand Wagoneer were huge.
The other half of it was: Chrysler getting the brand new Bramalea plant that AMC/Renault had spent a ton of money on and was getting ready to produce Premiers; Getting the Kenosha plant that was already producing M-bodies and L-Bodies for Chrysler under contract; Getting a dealer network that was established that they could also put other Chrysler products in; and getting a talented engineering team/structure that could do a lot more than just milk the K platform (Francois Castaing from AMC became VP or something of Engineering and oversaw a lot of Chrysler successes in the early to mid 90's until Bob Eaton ruined it and let Daimler crumble it even more - The LH platform, Neon, All new minivan platform, Viper, Ram re-design, improvements to existing powertrains, etc.)
As for what Chrysler did with Renault cars, part of the sale had some contractual obligations to Renault. They had to build a certain number of Premier's and buy a certain number of PRV engines to build them or pay a penalty to Renault, they also had to sell the Renault (later Eagle) Medallion (remember those?!) for a certain number of years. Chrysler didn't meet any of the obligations and paid the penalties. IIRC, the Encore was already planned to be discontinued, but Chrysler accelerated that to shortly after the sale so it wouldn't compete with profitable Omni/Horizon sales. The Medallion was the only car that Chrysler sold as a Renault, and I'll bet that was because they didn't want anything taking the focus off the Premier being the flagship for the new brand.
IIRC, the reason they came up with Eagle was because market research showed that most Jeep buyers 2nd vehicles weren't American or Japanese, they were European. Eagle was supposed to have some European flavor that might rope in some of those Jeep buyers for their 2nd car. You could see it in the Premier (which was pretty much European), the Talon (especially 92-94), as well as the Vision and the car that was supposed to replace it as an Eagle, the 300M. However, I don't think the Summit/Vista were fooling anyone, and they seemed to abandon the plan pretty quickly.
But yea, more to your point, it's probably Renault looking to get their hands on Jeep
What happened to Jeep being sold off as it's own company? I thought that was already in the works.
In reply to Patientzero :
Selling off Jeep probably leaves the rest of the house of cards to collapse.
bmw88rider said:Scary thing is, this will make the largest automaker in the world. Think about that for a minute.
Too big to fail??
alfadriver said:The merger would also mean that F1 goes from three independent engine makers, to 2- as Ferrari and Renault would be the same corporate board.
Didn't seem to stop Porsche and Audi from contesting Le Mans pretty darn enthusiastically. I suspect there's too much national pride for Renault to pull out of F1, and Ferrari will never leave. So I can't see that state of affairs changing.
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