The media has been batting around the old chestnut of the Big Three a
lot in light lately. The phrase, however, is clearly dated. Sure,
General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. are massive enterprises worthy
of the "big" label, but Chrysler? Chrysler has long played second
fiddle to its bigger rivals, but today more than ever it simply doesn't
rank with them. Nonetheless, Chrysler remains in our minds a member of
the Big Three, not just here in the U.S., but abroad as well,
which is odd given the company's limited distribution outside North
America.
Continue reading below
For example, the fear of a Chrysler bankruptcy prompted this
comment in Reuters' Dealzone: "Fiat's chief, Sergio Marchionne, went a
little further, prognosticating that Chrysler will disappear and that
only six big players will be left around the world when the dust
settles."
But will the world weep over Chrysler's demise? Would it really
matter to the rest of the global auto industry if Chrysler disappeared?
Maybe it does to Fiat and other midtier players, given perceptions of
their own soundness or relevance.
And when did Chrysler tumble to midtier status anyway? Chrysler
may have never deserved its "big" status. If you believe that it
deserved the term at some point, then a case for when can be made that
the government's 1979 bailout was the beginning of the end of that
status. Sure, it motored on, and even introduced the first minivans,
but that does not impart "big" status. It also acquired American Motors
Corp. in 1987, which brought with it Jeep, but again that does not
impart "big" status.
Even Chrysler seemed to recognize its junior-level status in 1998
when it agreed to merge with Germany's Daimler AG. At the time, the media
even ran stories about the end of the Big Three, since control of
Chrysler shifted to Stuttgart, Germany. But the term revived when
Cerberus Capital Management LLC purchased Chrysler from Daimler last year.
Today, recognition of Chrysler's second-tier status is slowly
dawning. For example, congressmen and senators seem to think Chrysler's
future is perhaps best in GM's garage and not in Cerberus' hands. Alas,
the only piece of Chrysler that would survive a GM merger would likely
be Jeep, a vestige of AMC, not Chrysler. - Matthew Wurtzel
Matthew Wurtzel is the editor of Dealscape.
Comments
Wow, I used to think that any enterprise that made a couple-million anythings was BIG. Mr. Wurtzel rather blithely dismisses that Chryco has routinely made over two million vehicles for many years, has controlled about 12% of the US auto market since the 50's was the second largest producer of vehicles in the US (exceeding Ford) prior to the WW2, and is currently the largest seller of cars in Canada. Just goes to show a body that commentators are not so much full of information as full of themselves.