This year Chrysler is practically avoiding the hubbub entirely, in that it will have no press conference at next month’s Detroit Auto Show. It won’t be for lack of cars: they’ll have items from all four brands, including some limited-edition models. Chrysler’s head of marketing, Olivier Francois, said that after the big event last month to reveal the long-term plan, “We presented our plans and the next step is to present the cars.”Understandably, industry observers seem to think that it’s a bad idea for Chrysler to go mum in Detroit. Chrysler’s a private company and no outsider knows what the real situation is inside the castle walls. If Chrysler does go for the splash of a press conference, with no new models to show or even talk about they’ll be ripe for charges of “All that’s great talk now show us the cars!” That makes it sound like a case of being damned either way.
Well isn’t that spayshul? So far this week we learned:
1. Chrysler will not be paying back millions of dollars in bailout money it received before “Chrysler” went out of business and was renamed “Old Carco.”
2. “New Carco,” neé Chrysler, will not be presenting a press conference at the largest and most important auto show in the United States. How does anyone look at that as anything but Chrysler “giving up?” Or better yet, not caring about putting on a good show because they’re doing it with taxpayer money?
Frankly, Chrysler is a disgrace. For all the negativity directed toward GM, they’re going to start paying their money back next year while Chrysler doesn’t seem to have any plans to do the same.
They deserve to go out of business.