New Mopar '12 Chrysler 300 Special to go on Sale in this Summer, Only 500 will be Made

As part of its 75th anniversary celebrations, Mopar revealed a new limited edition version of the Chrysler 300 that will go on display at the 2012 Chicago Auto Show from February 10-19 before it arrives in dealerships this summer with a starting price of $49,700, which includes $825 for destination.

The Mopar '12 300 will be built in a limited run of 500 units, all of which are painted in a black exterior finish with bespoke Mopar appointments such as the black chrome grille and accents, tinted lights, blue pin stripes on the profile and hood, plus “Mopar 75” fender badges and a set of color matching 20-inch forged alloy wheels.

The Chrysler division's tuning and performance arm also made changes to the interior that features black leather with blue accent stitching on the seats and steering wheel, a unique Mopar shifter handle, special sill plates and badges, and matte carbon hydrographic accents on the instrument panel and center console sections.

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Chrysler Group to Celebrate Mopar's 75th Birthday with Four Specially Modified Vehicles

We are eagerly anticipating the first official teaser photo of the next SRT Viper in the early morning hours of Tuesday but that's not all the Chrysler Group has in store for us this week.

In celebration of the 75th anniversary of Mopar, which is the group's automobile parts and service arm, the Detroit firm will present four specially modified vehicles that will go on display at next month's 2012 Chicago Auto Show (January 10 to 19).

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Chrysler Group Builds 1 Millionth Pentastar V6 after 18 Months

Only 18 months after the Chrysler Group began production of its new Pentastar V6 at its Trenton Engine Assembly Plant in Michigan, the company hit its first important milestone with the manufacturing of the one-millionth unit. The V6 is also produced at Chrysler's plant in Saltillo, Mexico.

The Detroit firm's all-aluminum 3.6-liter V6 engine made its debut on the 2010 Jeep Grand Cherokee but has since found its way under the hood of many more models.

These include the Chrysler 200, 300 and Town and Country, plus the Dodge Avenger, Challenger, Charger, Durango, Journey and Caravan, and more recently the 2012 Jeep Wrangler.

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Fiat-Chrysler Alliance wants to Produce Jeep Models in China

Chinese officials may be withdrawing their support for investments made by foreign automakers, but the Fiat-Chrysler Alliance is still looking for ways to increase its presence in the country.

A new report from the Detroit News says that Fiat and Chrysler are currently in "intense negotiations" with the Guangzhou Automobile Group to produce Jeep models for the local market.

The Italian automaker has already forged a joint venture with Guangzhou for the manufacturing of a new compact sedan based on the 2013 Dodge Dart, which will most likely be introduced in China at the upcoming Beijing motor show in April.

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Bailout Execs Criticized for Receiving Big Salaries, Some Claimed they Couldn't Survive with $500k…

On Tuesday, the Office of the Special Inspector General charged with auditing the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which bailed out among others General Motor and the Chrysler Group, came out with a report criticizing the U.S. government for failing to implement salary caps.

To brief you up, back in 2008, the U.S. government used US$700 billion under Tarp to bailout more than 700 institutions from which seven companies stood out due to the amount of money they received and the nature of their bailouts.

The seven companies that received so-called "exceptional assistance" were General Motors, the Chrysler Group, Ally Financial (formerly GMAC, Inc.), AIG, Bank of America, Chrysler Financial Services and Citigroup.

Although using taxpayers’ money to bailout privately owned institutions was an issue debated for a long time, as it turns out, saving those companies and thousands of American jobs was not the only issue on hand.

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CSI Marchionne: Poor J.D. Power Scores Means Chrysler Dealers Must Work on Customer Satisfaction

Fiat is the brand in the alliance that's in trouble and Chrysler the one blossoming right now having increased its sales by 26 percent in 2011, yet Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne is not happy about the latter's performance in J.D. Power’s December Sales Satisfaction Index study on customer experience at dealerships.

The recent J.D. Power survey placed Jeep, Ram and Dodge in three of the bottom four places amongst the mainstream brands.

As a result, Sergio Marchionne wants Chrysler Group dealers to rapidly improve their Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) scores if the company is to achieve its sales goals. He said that some dealerships’ salespeople weren’t acting properly, failing to make follow-up calls or treat customers “with the dignity they deserve”.

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Is the 2013 Dodge Dart Sedan Using an Automatic Transmission Supplied from Hyundai?

It's no secret that, aside from the Fiat Group-sourced 168bhp 1.4-liter turbocharged MultiAir engine, the new 2013 Dodge Dart compact sedan continues to use two powerplants from Chrysler's past.

You see, while the Detroit maker is marketing its 2.0-liter and 2.4-liter four-cylinder units under the new "Tigershark" moniker, both have their roots in the Global Engine Manufacturing Alliance (GEMA) family of engines.

To explain, GEMA was a joint venture of the Chrysler Group, Mitsubishi Motors, and Hyundai Motor Company for the development of a line of shared four-cylinder gasoline engines. In 2009, Chrysler bought out the shares of Mitsubishi and Hyundai and continued GEMA on its own.

And here's where Hyundai comes into the picture. Citing unnamed sources, Car&Driver is reporting that the 2013 Dodge Dart's Tigershark engines are fitted with a Hyundai-supplied 6-speed automatic transmission.

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Fiat Rumored to Extend 500 Range With Mini-Rivaling Five-Door “Wagon”

On paper, Fiat’s return to the North American market after a 30-year absence was well planned. The first product introduced by the Italian maker was the 500 city car, which had already proven to be a hit in Europe, selling 770,000 units since 2007. Things looked promising in the U.S. as well.

While the 500’s mission was to rival BMW’s Mini, its 2011 sales of 26,000 units were almost half of original forecasts. Delays in the launch and the dealer network certainly played a role while Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne also thinks that the company’s strategy was to blame.

“We thought we were going to show up and, just because of the fact people like gelato and pasta, people will buy it”, he told reporters last week. “This is nonsense”.

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Germany Makes Twice as Many Cars as the U.S. Even though it Pays its Workers Twice as Much

You’re bombarded by the same message over and over again on the news and perhaps have even experienced it at your work as well: there is a global economic crisis, things are not going well, workers have to adapt and accept lower wages in order to keep their jobs.

It’s happening all over the world, from Europe to the United States. Even the current administration’s “car czar”, Steve Rattner, said that the government should have pushed the UAW to take wage cuts in order to enhance U.S. automakers’ competiveness.

It seems to make sense: cutting costs is a tried method of increasing a company’s profitability. But what if it’s all a lie created by profit-hungry, greedy mega corporations and perpetrated by the media – which, in some cases, are owned by the same people?

That’s the question posed by Kevin C. Brown on his article in Remapping Debate. The argument he makes is quite compelling: how are German car workers at companies like BMW, Mercedes-Benz and VW paid twice as much as their counterparts in the U.S., yet manufacture twice as many cars?

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U.S. Auto Industry Speeds Up as China and Europe Slow Down

What difference only three years can make: in 2009, U.S. sales had dipped to their lowest point in the last 25 years, while sales in China were increasing exponentially.

Today, the picture is quite different. The U.S. auto market has recovered and according to a report from Autonews, it may be the safest bet for profitable growth. Emerging markets including China, India and Brazil, which until recently looked like the land of opportunity for carmakers, are slowing down.

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Fiat-Chrysler "Willing" to Form an Alliance with Opel, GM Says it's Not Interested

In 2000, General Motors and Fiat formed an alliance in which the American company gained 20 percent of the Italian manufacturer’s shares in exchange for 5.1 percent of its own stock. Among other projects, the two companies jointly developed the Gamma platform for B-segment cars that underpinned the 2005 Fiat Punto and the 2007 Opel Corsa.

Fiat’s partnership with GM was short-lived though, and was eventually dissolved – but not before the Italians got US$2 billion dollars as part of the original agreement.

Well, we don’t know how to say “if at first you don’t succeed, try again” in Italian, but Sergio Marchionne surely does – and despite the earlier failure, commented during the Detroit Motor Show that Fiat and Chrysler would be “willing participants” if General Motors wanted to discuss Opel tying up with another manufacturer.

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Chrysler Boss asks if the 700C Concept Minivan is Stupid, Beautiful or Crazy [with Poll]

If it's attention that Chrysler wanted, it sure got what it asked for with the most secretive concept model of the 2012 Detroit Auto Show, the 700C minivan. And this despite the fact that the automaker didn't even issue a formal press release on its conceptual people carrier.

But all for good reason as Chrysler brand global boss Saad Chehab explained in an interview with Australian news site Drive at the Cobo Center.

Chebab told the website that Chrysler did not release any supporting information on the 700C because it "wanted unsolicited opinion about the car and its potential" from the motor show visitors. He also said that the 700C was a last minute addition to Chrysler's Detroit Motor Show booth.

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Chrysler Rolls Out Odd-Looking 700C Concept Minivan in Detroit

Unlike the 2013 Dodge Dart, the Chrysler Group was able to keep the 700C Concept under wraps until the grand opening of the 2012 Detroit Auto Show. In fact, the Auburn Hills based company did better than that: it has yet to release any information whatsoever on the concept model…

Given the lack of details, we can only speculate on the 700C though out first guess would be that it is a study previewing one of many possible design directions for a future replacement to the Town & Country.

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Dodge Dart gets "Unadjusted" 40 MPG Combined, Fiat Automatically Increases its Chrysler Stake by 5%

Chrysler announced that Fiat S.p.A.’s ownership interest in the company has increased from 53.3 to 58.5 percent, in accordance to the June 10, 2009 Operating Agreement.

As stipulated by the agreement, Chrysler issued a letter to the U.S. Department of Treasury stating that the company “has irrevocably committed” to begin assembly of a mass-production vehicle with a combined fuel economy of at least 40 mpg in a plant located in the United States.

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2011 U.S. Sales: Detroit's Big 3 and Koreans Report Strong Gains, Honda and Toyota Feel the Pinch

In the year that just ended, some automakers have a lot to be grateful for while others including Japan's biggest car brands would rather forget due to the Tsunami as well as the Thailand floods that significantly hurt their production lines during 2011.

Starting with the American carmakers, General Motors saw its U.S. sales rise 13.7 percent last year to 2,503,820 units. Chevrolet led the way with 1,775,812 units (+13.4%) followed by GMC at 397,986 (+18.8%), Buick at 177,633 (+14.3%) and Cadillac at 152,389 (+3.7%).

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Marchionne’s 6 Million Sales Target for Fiat-Chrysler Deemed "Unrealistic" by Analysts

To say that Fiat is in a crisis would probably be the understatement of the (last) year. Just a couple of weeks ago, the Italian group lowered its sales target for 2012 by half a million units, from 2.7 to 2.2 million. Even its CEO, Sergio Marchionne, has admitted that the European car market will drop in 2012.

Yet, the man who masterminded Chrysler’s acquisition during the 2009 bailout and merged the two groups into one entity wants them to sell more than six million vehicles a year by 2014. By doing so, he might have set the bar too high.

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Polk Estimates Global Vehicle Sales to Reach 77.7 Million Units in 2012, and 96.3 Million in 2016

The analyst gurus at R. L. Polk & Co have issued a new forecast for global vehicle sales in 2012. The automotive market intelligence firm predicts that sales are expected to rise 6.7 percent over 2011 volumes to 77.7 million vehicles, thanks to the global economy riding out the European debt crisis and consumers returning to showrooms.

However, this does not mean that the European car market will recover. On the contrary, Polk estimates that Europe will be the only region where sales will be flat or slightly down to just over 19 million units due to the tight financial plans enforced by most governments.

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New Chrysler 200 Super S by Mopar Heads to the Detroit Auto Show

Joining the 2012 Dodge Charger Redline at the upcoming North American International Auto Show in Detroit next week will be a second Mopar creation, this time based on the Chrysler 200 sedan called the Super S.

There are two available kits that improve the Chrysler 200 sedan's looks and handling respectively and which can be ordered together.

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Yay or Nay? Custom Chrysler 300C HEMI V8 Coupe

When you are a Major League Baseball Hall of Famer like Tony Gwynn, you can pretty much afford to get whatever ride you like. In Gwynn's case, at some point he fancied a first-generation Chrysler 300 in a coupe form. And he got his wish.

But now, Gwynn's custom-made Chrysler 300 has popped up for sale at Beverly Hills Motor Cars in San Diego with the dealer asking for US$27,950 (€21,700).

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New 2012 Chrysler 300 Luxury Edition with 3.6-liter V6

Chrysler continues to expand its offerings for the new 300 sedan with the introduction of a new V6 option for the Luxury Edition, which will be available in addition to the range-topping 300C Luxury Series featuring a 363 horsepower 5.7-liter HEMI V8 engine.

The 300 Luxury Edition is powered by the regular model's 292HP 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 engine matched to a standard eight-speed automatic transmission and the choice of rear- or all-wheel drive.

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