It was the revamped 1984 & up Cherokee being such a hit that made Chrysler want Jeep. AMC had bleed heavily over their marvelous wonders such as the Gremlin and Hornet, and of course let’s not forget the Pacer. (Oh Boy!) AMC just wanted out of the consumer market to focus their efforts on government contracts where they could be profitable. It had been a tough decade or so for all the auto makers with tightening emissions and safety regulations, not to mention the Iranian oil embargo; all of which contributed to the end of the muscle cars era as we knew it.
We the people of America gave Fiat 1.5 Billion (yes with a B) dollars for “management expertise” and allowed them to gain control of Chrysler. (Most likely we borrowed the 1.5 Billion from China but that’s another discussion.) Nothing political about this, just the facts; Obama called the shots as it was his announced intentions to rid us of the SUV and Fiat was Obama’s pathway to smaller cars in America. Also if you recall with the government takeover of GM it was announced that GM was going to move to electric cars only; of course this turned out to not be practical without a large loss of market share and we haven’t heard much talk of it in the last two years.
It is odd (maybe a better word could be used rather than “odd”) the destiny of the little vehicle that contributed so much to the defeat of Germany and Italy in WWII has been controlled by both of those countries over the last 20 years or so. Heck even the French had their fingers in the pie for a while before Daimler. Obama states he does what he says and in the case of the American auto industry I’d have to agree but now we know the end result of his actions, an Italian Jeep.
up!!!!
Pete,
