No. Mike, this all happened way before the new Ram truck.
Actually, what happened is that Lee Iaccoca (sp?), who was hired from
Ford, and actually knew how to run a company, came in and reorganized
Chrysler. This was where the first real "downsizing" took place, I
think. And last, but certainly not least, there were huge loans from the
federal government to bail them out. In fairness, as I recall the story,
Chrysler paid the loan back, early, and w/ interest. Apparently, the
gov't had some interest in keeping the third of the "big three". If
there were only the big 2, then you might have all kinds of monopoly and
anti trust problems. Three makes it competitive, as it were. If it
weren't for Lee, then we'd not have those fine looking trucks. PS-Mine
was made in Mexico.
In order not to offend the list police, I have a Dodge Ram pickup
and used it to haul Bob Allen's MG C home from St. Louis, when it quit,
stopped, made funny noises, and became generally useless. That is the
obligatory LBC content. Pppppffffffftttttttt!!!
Larry Dickstein
bugide@juno.com
There is no problem that cannot be solved
with either a checkbook or high explosives.
On Tue, 02 Dec 1997 02:35:49 -0800 Mike Lishego <mikesl@tartan.sapc.edu>
writes:
>John McEwen wrote:
>> To think that the greatest auto and
>> motorcycle names of Britain are dead and gone - Austin and Morris,
>BSA and
>> Norton - is a sad commentary on the history of a great nation. No
>other
>> country stood by and witnessed such an amazing loss.
>
>That's where I might have to differ on this argument. Didn't Chrysler
>almost
>disappear in the late eighties/early ninties? I remember hearing
>rumours about their
>demise, but no talk of what would be done. Thankfully, they pulled
>themselves up by
>the bootstraps and built the new Ram trucks. If I'm wrong, please
>correct me, this
>is only what I had heard at the time.
>
>Oh yes, please don't think for a second that I'm trying to compare
>Chrysler with
>Austin. I might be dumb, but I isn't stupid.
>
>--
>Michael S. Lishego
>St. Andrews Presbyterian College
>Elementary Education Major,
>English Minor, Class of 1999
>R.A. of Winston-Salem Hall
>
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