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Marchionne's pay as Fiat CEO falls to $5M

Sergio Marchionne will be buying fewer of his iconic sweaters, as his 2013 pay from Fiat took a dip from $6.24 million to an even $5 million. Marchionne, who was also CEO of Chrysler, made $307,989 thanks to some stocks and benefits from the American company, although he didn't take a salary. Of that $5 million paid by Fiat, $3.19 million came from Marchionne's fixed salary while the remaining $1.8 million was paid for hitting unspecified performance targets.
The news comes from Fiat's compensation reports, which also showed that the 61-year-old, who already owned three million shares in Fiat at the end of 2013, was able to receive an additional 2.3 million shares through a stock incentive program. According to Automotive News Europe, the additional shares would be worth about $25 million at today's prices, although so far, Marchionne has declined to claim the extra shares.
According to ANE, Fiat reported a 2013 trading profit of $4.7 billion.

Question of the Day: Most heinous act of badge engineering?

Badge engineering, in which one company slaps its emblems on another company's product and sells it, has a long history in the automotive industry. When Sears wanted to sell cars, a deal was made with Kaiser-Frazer and the Sears Allstate was born. Iranians wanted new cars in the 1960s, and the Rootes Group was happy to offer Hillman Hunters for sale as Iran Khodro Paykans. Sometimes, though, certain badge-engineered vehicles made sense only in the 26th hour of negotiations between companies. The Suzuki Equator, say, which was a puzzling rebadge job of the Nissan Frontier. How did that happen? My personal favorite what-the-heck-were-they-thinking example of badge engineering is the 1971-1973 Plymouth Cricket. Chrysler Europe, through its ownership of the Rootes Group, was able to ship over Hillman Avanger subcompacts for sale in the US market. This would have made sense... if Chrysler hadn't already been selling rebadged Mitsubishi Colt Galants (as Dodge Colts) and Simca 1100s as (Simca 1204s) in its American showrooms. Few bought the Cricket, despite its cheery ad campaign. So, what's the badge-engineered car you find most confounding? Chrysler Dodge Automakers Mitsubishi Nissan Suzuki Automotive History question of the day badge engineering question

Detroit 3 small cars lay an egg in latest Consumer Reports reliability study

Consumer Reports has released its Annual Auto Reliability Survey and the results are, in a word, interesting. While we already covered the score-damaging effects of infotainment systems, there's another big angle to the data that's getting some attention - the utterly dismal scores of the Detroit Three's small car offerings.
The turbocharged Dodge Dart and Chevrolet Cruze, as well as the Ford Fiesta were their respective brands' lowest-scoring models, a stat that's made worse by the fact that the American automakers finished 25th, 21st and 23rd, respectively.
That's not acceptable for The Detroit Free Press' auto critic, Mark Phelan, who has penned a scathing critique of the D3's small car reliability scores, arguing that GM, Ford and Chrysler are "out of excuses."