Friday, February 23, 2007

Chrysler should learn some lessons from the British Motor Corporation history

In the 1950, the British Motor Corporation was the third largest car company in the world. It suffered from a similar lack of dynamism to the old line Detroit companies now. However, it kept postponing the inevitable by merging with Triumph-Rover, and then sustained itself by licensing designs from Honda, then peeling off the more desirable brands such as Mini and Land-Rover, following its acquisition and divestment by BMW. Does this sound like Chrysler is heading this way? By then the only brand which had not been tainted was MG, so it relaunched all its cars under that name, and seemed to have a future. One day, it simply closed its doors, with unsold cars on dealers' lots, and no way of honoring warranties.

It is clear that this will one day be Chrysler's fate.

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