1998 Dodge Ram 3500 W/plow. Needs Engine. on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Auto Mergers and Acquisitions: Suicide or salvation?

We love the Moses figure. A savior riding in from stage right with the ideas, the smarts, and the scrappiness to put things right. Alan Mullaly. Carroll Shelby. Lee Iacocca. Andrew Carnegie. Steve Jobs. Elon Musk. Bart Simpson. Sergio Marchionne does not likely view himself with Moses-like optics, but the CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles recently gave a remarkable, perhaps prophetic interview with Automotive News about his interest and the inevitability of merging with a potential automotive partner like General Motors. Marchionne has been overtly public about his notion that GM must merge with FCA. For a bit of context, GM sold 9.9 million vehicles in 2014, posting $2.8 billion in net income, while FCA sold 4.75 million units and earned $2.4 billion in net income, painting a very rosy FCA earnings-to-sales picture. But that's not the entire picture. Most people in the auto industry still remember the trainwreck that was the DaimlerChrysler "merger" written in what turned out to be sand in 1998. It proved to be a master class in how not to fuse two companies, two cultures, two continents, and two management teams. Oh, it worked for the two individuals at both helms pre-merger. They got silly rich. And the industry itself was in a misty romance at the time with mergers and acquisitions. BMW bought Rolls-Royce. Volkswagen Group bought Bentley, Bugatti, and Lamborghini, putting all three brands into their rightful place in both products and positioning. No marriages there, so no false pretense. Finally, Nissan and Renault got married in 1999. A successful marriage requires several rare elements in this atmosphere of gas fumes and power lust. But a successful marriage requires several rare elements in this atmosphere of gas fumes and power lust, the principle part being honesty. Daimler and Chrysler lied to each other. The heads of each unit, the product planners, and finance all presented their then-current and long-range forecasts to each other with less-than-forthright accuracy. Daimler was the far greater equal and no one from the Chrysler side enjoyed that. The cultures were entirely different, too, and little was done to bridge that gap. Which brings me back to the present overtures by Marchionne to GM. "There are varying degrees of hugs," Marchionne stated in the Automotive News piece. "I can hug you nicely, I can hug you tightly, I can hug you like a bear, I can really hug you." Seriously?

Dodge Demon test mule spotted wearing unusual camouflage

The Dodge Demon apparently refuses to stay under wraps. The endless rollout of teasers continues each Thursday, but thanks to both Vin Diesel and our trusty spy photographer we have a whole suite of photos that show a nearly complete car in the flesh. This car appears to have been hiding in plain sight, as some of these photos were captured in the Detroit area. The car or cars in these photos is far less polished than the one shown in all of Dodge's teasers. The Air Grabber hood is unpainted, though it does come with some awesome hood pins. The same goes for the bolt-on fenders, as other pictures show a cleaner integration of the Demon's widebody modification. Despite the large Nitto logo on the top of the windshield, the cars in these photos are both wearing a set of Pirelli PZero All-season Plus tires on non-Demon wheels. It's as if drag radials aren't the best choice for winter driving. This car is fitted with two-piece Brembo brakes, but there's no telling if they're different than the standard Hellcat's. The decals on the side of the car may give clues to some of the Demon's equipment, but based on the LB Performance - commonly known as Liberty Walk- logo, the decals are likely more of a ruse than anything else. Liberty walk is famous in the tuning community for big, bolt-on body kits. The looks perfectly suit these test cars, though Borla exhaust and a Hurst shifter would be a wonderful addition to the Demon. Outside of that, there isn't much new to glean from these photos. Most of our questions about the Demon (horsepower, gearing, price) can't be had from pictures. Look for more news each Thursday in the lead up to the car's debut in New York in April. Related Video: Featured Gallery Dodge Demon Spy Shots View 14 Photos Related Gallery Dodge Demon Teasers View 17 Photos Image Credit: KGP Photography Spy Photos Dodge Coupe dodge hellcat

Dodge lets us drive 100-years' worth of history [w/videos]

A raft of important production models from the last hundred years were available for me to either drive or ride in.
Dodge is 100 years old this year. So, as happened on Ford's recent centennial, the 50-year birthday of the Porsche 911, and others, the company has an excuse to trot out the highlights of its history next to its upcoming model lineup, and declare that "these are the fruits of the Dodge Boys' tree whose roots have grown strong." Or something like that. Never so hampered by marketing skepticism that I'll pass up the opportunity to burn someone else's rubber, I was happy to drive out to Meadow Brook Hall in Rochester Hills, MI - former grand estate of the Dodge family - to hear the spiel.