2005 Chrysler Crossfire Srt-6, Supercharged, "click Description For More Pics" on 2040-cars

Auto blog

China-FCA merger could be a win-win for everyone but politicians

NEW YORK — Fiat Chrysler boss Sergio Marchionne has said the car industry needs to come together, cut costs and stop incinerating capital. So far, his words have mostly fallen on deaf ears among competitors in Europe and North America. But it appears Marchionne has finally found a receptive audience — in China. FCA shares soared Monday after trade publication Automotive News reported the $18 billion Italian-American conglomerate controlled by the Agnelli family rebuffed a takeover from an unidentified carmaker from the Chinese mainland. As ugly as the politics of such a combination may appear at first blush, a transaction could stack up industrially, and perhaps even financially. A Sino-U.S.-European merger would create the first truly global auto group. That could push consolidation to the next level elsewhere. Moreover, China is the world's top market for the SUVs that Jeep effectively invented, so it might benefit FCA financially. A combo would certainly help upgrade the domestic manufacturer; Chinese carmakers have gotten better at making cars, but struggle to build global brands, and they need to develop export markets. Though frivolous overseas shopping excursions by Chinese enterprises are being reined in by Beijing, acquisitions that support the modernization and transformation of strategic industries still receive support, and the government considers the automotive industry to be strategic. A purchase of FCA by Guangzhou Automobile, Great Wall or Dongfeng Motors would probably get the same stamp of approval ChemChina was given for its $43 billion takeover of Syngenta. What's standing in the way? Apart from price (Automotive News said FCA's board deemed the offer insufficient) there's the not-insignificant matter of politics. Even as FCA shares soared, President Donald Trump interrupted his vacation to instruct the U.S. Trade Representative to look into whether to investigate China's trade policies on intellectual property. Seeing storied Detroit brands like Jeep, Chrysler, Ram and Dodge handed off to a Chinese company would provoke howls among Trump's economic-nationalist supporters. It might not play well in Italy, either, to see Alfa Romeo and Maserati answering to Wuhan instead of Turin — though Automotive News said they might be spun off separately. Yet, as Morgan Stanley observes, "cars don't ship across oceans easily," and political considerations increasingly demand local manufacture of valuable products.

Supplier says Jeep Cherokee hack only affects FCA cars

Harman doesn't think that drivers need to worry about any further hacks of its products. The company supplies FCA's Uconnect infotainment system where a software vulnerability is responsible for a 1.4-million vehicle recall. "This experimental hack is unique to Chrysler," Harman CEO Dinesh Paliwal said to Automotive News. "This does not exist, to our assessment, in any other vehicle." The reason that the company wouldn't be involved is that automakers aren't simply plugging in the existing infotainment systems into new vehicles. According to Paliwal, Harman supplies the unit, but FCA and other automakers are able to make additional modifications for their vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has also recently taken up the question of broader software vulnerabilities in Harman's products. On July 29, the agency began investigating the company to check for similarities between Uconnect and the infotainment systems supplied to other automakers. The Jeep hack became national news when two researchers were remotely able to take control of a Cherokee. The vulnerability in the cellular connection even gave control over the brakes. "Once people get in the car and get into the CAN bus, then you can start to mimic and mess up many, many things in the car," Paliwal said to Automotive News. Politicians immediately responded with legislation to create federal standards in hopes of protecting drivers better. NHTSA also opened an investigation to make sure the automaker's software update actually solved the problem. Related Video:

Watch Jay Leno's Garage work on a Porsche 911 and others

Jay Leno doesn't just own a bunch of cars – he restores them. (Or has people who restores them, at any rate.) For this latest video, he's showing us some of the projects he and his team are currently working on. The tour-de-garage starts with a 1953 Cunningham that had been in storage since '68, complete with a copper grille ready for plating and a 331 Hemi V8. Jay says that every one of the cars that Briggs Cunningham made is still on the road – but that's just one of the dozen or so projects Jay and company are working on. There's a suitably brown '71 Porsche 911 T in near-original condition having sat untouched parked underground in Beverly Hills for decades, and a '58 Chrysler Imperial convertible once driven by Clark Gable and Frank Sinatra, and now getting a brake upgrade. There's a Volvo 122 wagon that's been stripped down, media-blasted, and powder-coated, a thousand-horsepower Rolls-Royce, a 1960 Nash Metropolitan, a supercharged Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman, and a 1914 Detroit Electric. And those are just the four-wheeled automobiles. Over in the two-wheeler section there's a pair of Brough Superiors, a BSA, an Indian, and a custom racing sidecar that Jay's mechanic Bernard is working on. In short, Jay Leno's Garage isn't just one where vehicles are kept – it's one where vehicles are brought back to life. Related Video: News Source: Jay Leno's Garage via YouTube Chrysler Mercedes-Benz Porsche Classics Videos Jay Lenos Garage bsa