Wonder what they’re paying Press and Murtaugh to jump ship.

^^^^More than you or I will make in a lifetime

He just wanted to go home

Yeah i’ll bet those two salary packages are VERY impressive.. Only goes to prove everybody/every thing has its price

And the executive shopping spree continues

Makes you wonder if they’re jumping for the huge payday and hopes of a quickly sinking ship, or if they actually want the glory of bringing Chrysler back to relevance? I guess time will tell..

I hope Cerberus’ ambitious plan pays off.

Autonutt—it appears to me that the guys at Cerberus are acting pretty aggressively. It appears they’ve hired some pretty big guns, and I sure hope it works for them. I miss the days when you could count on Chrysler to show some pretty amazing concepts at Detroit every year, and have a pretty good expectation that they might actually be produced.

I’ll bet those new guys that they just hired are going to be scrutinized VERY closely, and that their pay is at least partially tied to their performance. In other words, I don’t think they’re going to get paid the big bucks for letting the ship go down the drain.

Just want to add though, I wish them luck. I hope Chrysler turns itself around like GM

Scott,
Couldn’t have said it better myself. While I’m sure the big paycheck was a large factor the opportunity to bring Chrysler back from the brink of destruction is something that any car loving executive should jump at. Chrysler has huge potential and I really hope that this spending spree helps bring it out in them, bring back the days of innovation, beautiful designs (both inside & out), and moderately priced luxury.

Wow, I’m suprised. I haven’t seen any comments saying it’s because GM has better quality, or Toyota. Executives change hands alot, so whoever reads this, don’t bring it up (especially GM-SALES).

The guys at Cerberus are acting very aggressively, Scott Kempton. But most of the major changes have been to finances and costs, not the actual cars themselves, so it doesn’t seem as evident to people who see GM and Ford coming out with new, updated cars.
Chryslers lineup sells more than enough to make an excellent profit, but the problem is squeezing the profit out of those cars. Right now Cerberus is trying to narrow that margin.

I’m glad that the American companies see value in product quality. I am however slightly disturbed that they are willing to dump everything that is American about there products and willingly ricerize themselves. It’s a real tragedy that this has happened. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Unless you spend in excess of $50,000, all cars are nearly identical anyways. Why should Chrysler not ricerize themselves and be “successful” like Toyota?

I’m too old for this ****

I wouldnt wish anything GM on any company

and why is that tripleonefive? Because they are such an insignificant part of our economy that it would be okay for them to go bankrupt? They represent 4-6% of our total GDP!! While we are at it, why don’t we let Coca Cola, McDonalds, AIG, CitiGroup, Microsoft, Google, and all the DOW30 companies go under too? Wouldn’t America be great then [sarcasm]

jJay, I understand what you are trying to say about Cerebrus making management changes but seemingly not doing much about the product.. but you have to give them time, it’s a helluva lot easier to change executives than it is to change the vehicles, particularly since the sale just completed. I agree with Scott and Kenny, they’ve hired some big guns with lots of experience in successful companies, and I don’t expect that they want their reputations tarnished if they let Chrysler fail.. so I’m pretty confident that product improvements are imminent as soon as they are financially feasible.

Exactly Autonutt, but Cerberus buying Chrysler doesn’t mark the beginning of Chryslers restructuring plan. The Jeep Wrangler and Compass, Dodge Caliber and somewhat the Avenger, and Chrysler Sebring and minivans have all been on the boards before Chrysler was funded by Cerberus.

In other words, they’ve had the time, but they’ve decided to go with other objectives, such as making those products profitable. Saying to “give them time” is bull, they’ve had the time but decided to go with other adventures, like converting Mercedes Benz’s semi-outdated platforms to fit their needs, and just recently finances with Cerberus. More or less, Cerberus is there to make sure the products are profitable. They’ve had the time, but they’ve undercut and ignored it, instead putting that effort into other things- doesn’t seem like alot of effort though.
And even these products they’ve been working on are ****, with the exception of the Caliber and Jeep models. The interiors are still unfortunately stuck in the 80’s, with square body panels, uninspiring colors and sloppy steering (The new Chrysler Sebring, Aspen, and Jeep Compass all have sloppy handling, those are only the few I’ve had the opportunity to drive in).

LOL I wrote Cerebrus.. though the Palsy has yet to set in. I understand what you are saying, jJay.. but you are talking about Chrysler under DC ownership, not Cerberus.. all of those projects you mention, including the sharing of platforms with Mercedes-Benz, were decided upon LONG before Cerberus’ involvement. What I was trying to say is that the new ownership and management team is obviously taking visible action to fix cost and profit goals (mainly to satisfy shareholders), but it will take a while for us to see the extent of the product changes they are working on right now, since it takes much longer to bring them to fruition.

Pil Murtaugh was not a GM exec for the past 15 months. He left GM for more than two years ago and was later hired by SAIC Motor, a holding company for the various auto, motorcycle, truck and farm machinery assets of the SAIC Group. These include Shanghai Automotive, Shanghai Volkswagen (JV), Shanghai GM (JV) and Shanghai Motor Manufacturing (Roewe 75, a lwb derivative of the Rover 75).

Its all about the product!! They should be steling engineers and designers from Toyota, Honda and Audi etc to get to the end result. Corperate raiders always hire big names first, then the cutting and slicing will begin to show the stockholders some real value…but what about the product?? It always lags. In the time of war, car companies changed from making cars to planes in months…why can not a new car company like Chrysler make bold moves on their boring product NOW, and get going?? Their real intent is getting max valuation within a few years….cut and divide.

Agree with Jdasch1.

Product sells, not suits that don’t push for quality and deny there are bad problems with the product.

The job of a suit at GM and Ford:

Deny, Deny, Deny, Watch the company die.

FRESH START