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Fiat pondering swallowing rest of Chrysler, US IPO

At the moment, Fiat is in court with the United Auto Workers, waiting for the justice system to provide some guidance on a fair price for 41.5-percent of Chrysler it doesn't own. Fiat owns 58.5 percent of the company and wishes to buy the remainder, which is owned by the union's VEBA retiree trust, but the Italian company and the UAW are on different sides of the galaxy when it comes to assigning a fair price to that outstanding stake.
Naturally, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne is considering his options. A new report in the The Wall Street Journal says one of the scenarios being considered now is - depending on the outcome of the court case - to purchase the 41.5-percent stake and then issue an IPO to recoup some of the cost. About two months ago, Marchionne put the odds of an IPO for a wholly combined Fiat/Chrysler at 50 percent. Even with the WSJ report, it's not clear if those odds have changed.
The current company structure leaves a lot of options as to how a potential IPO could be issued, but it's said that Marchionne is against it, preferring "to be one company," under Fiat, indivisible. If Fiat is finally able to purchase all of the Pentastar, it would get access to Chrysler's war chest, pegged at $11.9 billion at the end of Q3 in 2012, and that money can't come soon enough for a brand taking a beating in Europe and delaying product over cash concerns.

MotorWeek reviews '83 American Motors lineup

The 30th anniversary of American Motors' 1987 sale to Chrysler by Renault is just a few years away. AMC is long dead, but for its latest peek in the archives, MotorWeek winds back the clock to somewhat happier times. Take a look at the entire AMC lineup from 1983, including its models from Jeep and Renault. The Jeeps, and to a lesser extent, the AMC Eagle, enjoy a cult following today, but it's amazing how many of these other vehicles are now practically forgotten. Even the big debut in '83 of the Renault Alliance is largely ignored. Although with a ludicrous amount of body roll and a 55-horsepower 1.4-liter engine, it's probably rightly buried. Related Video: News Source: MotorWeek via YouTube Design/Style Chrysler Jeep Renault Classics Videos amc

Huge Canadian sinkhole destroys four-lane road, swallows car

A major thoroughfare in the Canadian capital city of Ottawa was closed after a huge sinkhole opened beneath it. According to the CBC, the sinkhole appeared around mid-morning on Wednesday on Rideau Street near its intersection with Sussex Drive. The sinkhole, which initially formed over an unstable vein of sand, silt, and fractured rock, quickly spread across all four lanes of Rideau Street. A high-pressure natural gas line and a water main were shattered by the road collapse, filling the deep hole with water, gas, and fumes and forcing the evacuation of numerous surrounding buildings. All traffic save for buses and taxis had already been banned from the area due to excavation for a light rail station, but a Chrysler minivan parked along Rideau street fell into the hole as it expanded. Construction workers working in the light rail site evacuated safely once the road began collapsing, and no injuries were reported. Ottawa mayor Jim Watson told The Guardian that there was no sure way to tell how long repairs to Rideau Street would take. "It's a significant sinkhole in the downtown core. It has a major impact on our largest retail shopping center, one of our major hotels as well as one of the busiest intersections and bus routes." This is the second sinkhole to appear in downtown Ottawa in recent years. In 2014, a nearly thirty-foot wide sinkhole caused by excavation for the light rail system opened just a few blocks away from Rideau and Sussex. Watson stated that it is too soon to say whether or not Wednesday's sink hole was related to light rail construction. "We can't confirm whether the tunnel had any impact on the sinkhole or whether it was a water main break or whether it was a leak of some type that destabilized the soil." Watson went on to say that he hoped that city officials would be able to pinpoint the exact cause of the collapse soon. Related Video: News Source: The Guardian, CBC News Auto News Weird Car News Chrysler Minivan/Van sinkhole road