Ram-bunctious!

DETROIT The grille is unmistakably Dodge. The hope is loyal Ram fullsize pickup buyers will remain equally true. The '02 DaimlerChrysler Corp. Dodge light-duty Ram headed for production in July and to U.S. dealerships in the fall headlined this month at the Chicago Auto Show (see p.84). The new and restyled beast boasts a pair of new-to-Ram engines, an even higher hood, and a larger cab in a concentrated

By Alisa Priddle • March 1, 2001

Putting a New Spin on DaimlerChrysler Corp.

What will a profitable DaimlerChrysler Corp. look like two years from now? Will it still be an integral part of DaimlerChrysler AG? Will its products retain styling edge and regain segment domination? Will the historic merger be deemed successful? The architects of the megadeal and their successors insist the economic reasons that prompted the merger continue to hold true. But talk of spinning off

By Alisa Priddle • March 1, 2001

Explore the Trendline➔

Artificial Intelligence

Automakers and dealers alike are increasingly seeing the use case for AI within their operations. Explore some use cases in this trendline.

By WardsAuto staff

Sharpen those pencils!

Is an Oldsmobile franchise worth less for multi-franchise dealers than for the country's 63 exclusive Olds dealers? Yes, says General Motors Corp. which is phasing out the brand. GM's transition financial assistance package (TFAP) sets a sliding scale of $1,500 to $2,900 per vehicle unit for determining amounts payable to Olds dealers. The largest amount which was initially $2,400 per vehicle before

March 1, 2001

Youth club honors Beau Boeckmann

The Boys & Girls Club of San Fernando Valley, CA, presented their Community Hands Award to Galpin Ford Vice President Beau Boeckmann, son of Galpin's owner Bert Boeckmann.. We salute Beau for his long-time commitment, not just to our club programs, but for his total involvement in working for the betterment of our youth, says Leroy Chase, Jr., president of the Boys & Girls Club.

March 1, 2001

Suburban Collection opens Honda and Acura points in Michigan

The Troy, MI-based Suburban Collection, owned by David T. Fischer, opened two new stores Suburban Honda and Suburban Acura in Farmington Hills. The facilities are built on a nine-acre parcel close to several major highways and expressways in suburban Detroit. The project cost $9 million. The Suburban Collection now encompasses 15 dealerships selling 16 domestic and import brands.

March 1, 2001

Leaf Relief

DETROIT If there's one thing this industry reveres, it's a cheap and effective design. How else to describe the rear suspension of every pickup truck and most truck-derived sport/utility vehicles (SUVs) currently sold? Solid rear axles and leaf-spring suspensions have been around since Daimler met Benz, and that fact is what helps trucks and SUVs to be such huge profit centers: They use century-old

By Bill Visnic • March 1, 2001

Bridgestone/Firestone Keeps Rolling with New Tire Tech

PHOENIX In the computing world there's Pentium, Pentium II and Pentium III. In the tire world there's UNI-T, UNI-T/AQ and UNI-T/AQ II. And although tire engineers don't move as quickly as their counterparts in the computer industry, tire technology advances just as inexorably. Consumer and automaker demand for tires that ride better, last longer, perform better as they wear and provide more grip on

By Tim Keenan • March 1, 2001

Campaign Marks Ford Racing Centennial

All eyes will be on the Antiques Roadshow in coming months. That's because Ford Motor Co. is on the lookout for a lost heirloom that signifies its storied racing heritage. In 1901, desperate to advance his fortunes as a car builder, 38-year-old Henry Ford challenged the day's pre-eminent racer. In the first and only race of his life, Mr. Ford drove his two-cyl., 26-hp car christened to victory over

March 1, 2001

Kentucky dealer’s Goodwrench Service Center goes after service customers who left the flock

Dealer Tom Gill believes in tracking data. In doing so, he learned one part of his store's operation was way off track. If you track it, you can manage it; otherwise you're dealing with perceptions, not facts, and then it's just a guess, really, says the owner of Tom Gill Chevrolet in Florence, KY. Data told him his dealership failed to keep many service department customers long term. Because I track

By Steve Finlay • March 1, 2001

Global Automakers Aggressively Consolidating Platforms

The concept of sharing platforms among different automakers isn't new, but the flurry of automotive mergers, acquisitions and alliances over the past several years now is starting to produce definite plans. Just last month Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. announced they have started co-development of the C-platform, part of the companies' planned platform-sharing project. Renault and Nissan, which

By KATHERINE ZACHARY and ANDREA WIELGAT • March 1, 2001

DaimlerChrysler Restructuring Plan Highlights:

Suppliers to cut costs 15% over two years. Workforce cut 20%, or 26,000 jobs, over three years. Included are 6,800 salaried jobs, of which 1,800 are on contract; manufacturing will lose 19,000 workers in a 15% reduction in capacity. Plants to close include Mound Road, Detroit, engine plant (1,000 workers) in December 2002, its work shifted to the two Mack Engine plants in Detroit; Mexico's Toluca

By Compiled by Alisa Priddle • March 1, 2001

New NADA chief offers advice to Big 3

New NADA Chairman Robert J. Maguire urges GM to stop blaming dealers for corporate miscues, prods DaimlerChrysler to meet more often with NADA leaders and scolds Ford for its controversial Blue Oval program. He says in his inaugural speech that factory/dealer relations are a major concern, which has seen significant improvement in the past year. The NADA leadership meets 3-4 times a year with top

March 1, 2001

U.S. Fans Rally Around Impreza WRX Turbo

SAVANNAH, GA Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd.'s Subaru automotive unit has been tempting U.S. sports-sedan fanatics for years with the possibility of bringing the Impreza WRX Turbo to this side of the ocean. It has generated such a faithful fan base largely because of the vehicle's performance on the World Rally Circuit. Rally racing joining soccer as a sport Europeans revere and Americans ignore involves

By KATHERINE ZACHARY • March 1, 2001

Corolla is a Rightful Car of the Century Nominee

TOYOTA CITY When the Car of the Century winners were announced last year, a conspicuous loser was the Toyota Corolla, the Japanese auto industry's all-time top seller, and specifically the 1993 version, judged by some the best compact ever built. The project manager, Akihiko Saito, still beams when he reminisces about the car. Now 60 and head of product planning, Mr. Saito, son of former Toyota chairman

By Roger Schreffler • March 1, 2001

FAMILY WAY KEEPS FORD STORE FLYING

It's all in the family at Tom Holzer Ford, a repeat Ward's Dealer Business Top 500 dealer in one of the most top-heavy Ford-dealered markets metro Detroit. One would expect to find mom, pop and the kids dealerships in far smaller regions than the Motor City and its environs. Holzer Ford, northwest of Detroit, serves the cities of Farmington Hills, Farmington and Novi in one of the state's fastest-growing

By Maynard M. Gordon • March 1, 2001

TOYOTA DEALERS TO USE NEW SYSTEM

Toyota Motor Sales is assembling what it expects to be the largest virtual network in the automotive industry Dealer Daily. Once this new system is installed and operating in most Toyota and Lexus dealerships, the manufacturer expects to use it for the bulk of its dealer communications, which will eliminate reams of paper and, as the system develops, save time and money. Dealer Daily will replace

By Tim Keenan • March 1, 2001

Supplier WrapUp

Kutner: Suppliers need more minority partners Harold Kutner, group vice president of Worldwide Purchasing at General Motors Corp., encourages Tier 1 automotive suppliers to expand their business with minority-owned suppliers. GM has made a huge commitment to the minority supplier community, but the entire automotive supply chain needs to review their business plans and make the same commitment, Mr.

By Senior Editor Tom Murphy • March 1, 2001

Mercedes Adds Coupe/Wagon to C-Class Family

NICE, France DaimlerChrysler AG's Mercedes-Benz C-Class grows with the addition of a coupe and station wagon and the news that another member might be on the way. And it has all happened in a much more timely fashion than we've been accustomed to seeing Merc add variants to its stalwart sedans in generations past. The coupe the smallest of the C-Class range hits dealerships in Europe in March and

By Andrea Wielgat • March 1, 2001

Crowning Achievements

It's all downhill now for Ford Motor Co.'s Roger Kim. The 28-year-old designer had been with the automaker for about 12 months when a company executive spotted his roof rack sketch. The first thing he said was, We've got to patent this thing right now, Mr. Kim recalls. The drawing featured an integrated ramp that could be extended beyond a vehicle's roof, and then folded over the rear hatch to create

By Eric Mayne • March 1, 2001

HYUNDAI CEO SAYS DEALERS ARE GOOD DEAL

Putting in a good word (actually several good words) for dealers is Finbarr O'Neill, CEO of Hyundai Motor America. He says in a Detroit speech, Not too long ago, people were talking about dealers as dinosaurs in our high-speed, Internet-connected world. Dealers had to change or die. Well, the retail highway is littered with the carcasses of wholesale guys who thought they knew retail. Dealers are

March 1, 2001

In High Demand

Since 1994, Phares Noel had been sauntering onto the campus of Howard University and cherry-picking the best of the historically black college's engineering graduates for the Chrysler Group. But last spring there was but one student waiting to be interviewed when the veteran engineer arrived. Miffed, Mr. Noel complained to the dean, who informed him that of late Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp.

By Frank S. Washington • March 1, 2001

Innovation is the Key

Incoming Society of Automotive Engineers President Neil A. Schilke envisions the world's premier engineering organization as becoming a funnel for new technology. Mr. Schilke, General Motors Corp.'s general director of engineering-Corporate Staffs, says he'll focus on SAE's ability to serve as an instrument through which information on the latest industry developments such as 42-volt vehicle architecture

By Laurel Wright • March 1, 2001

Unions Follow Separate Game Plans in Wake of DCC Job Cuts

They face a common threat: layoffs, reduced hours and other cost-cutting measures over which they have little control. But in the wake of restructuring plans at DaimlerChrysler Corp. that will cut the workforce by 20% over three years, the United Auto Workers (UAW) and Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) unions are launching decidedly different fights. And, not unlike Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire,

By Eric Mayne, Alisa Priddle • March 1, 2001

Searching for Style

Style. U.S. automakers had it to spare in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. Then they lost it. Now they want it back. Bad. Along with every other car company. It has little to do with a new aesthetic sense growing at automakers worldwide, although that indeed is a trend. Rather it is a dollars and cents issue. Suddenly styling – not just sound design – is separating winners from losers in the marketplace.

By Drew Winter • Feb. 16, 2001

HOW SUCCESS CAME TO TOP OLDS DEALER

"A warm spot in our hearts for that great old name" ELLISVILLE, MO - Thirty years ago, what was to become the largest-volume Oldsmobile dealership got its start here in a trailer and with a $200,000 loan from GM's Motors Holding Division.The new dealer kid on the block back then was Frank Bommarito.He had started out as a kid car washer at McMahon Ford and then did the same thing at Vincel Pontiac,

By Maynard M. Gordon • Feb. 1, 2001