In Memoriam: Sergio Marchionne (June 17, 1952 - July 25, 2018)

News broke this morning that the CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Sergio Marchionne, had passed away on Wednesday from complications related to shoulder surgery. Marchionne made his last public appearance on June 26 of this year and took medical leave soon after for shoulder surgery in Zürich, Switzerland. The surgery was for an invasive shoulder sarcoma, which he had kept concealed from his colleagues. On July 21, when the severity of his situation worsened, Marchionne was replaced at FCA, Ferrari, SGS (Société Générale de Surveillance) and CNH Industrial. He is survived by his partner, Manuela Battezzato, and his two sons, Alessio and Tyler.

For anyone in the automotive world who isn't already familiar with Marchionne, he was the chairman of Fiat since 2004 and oversaw the acquisition of Chrysler. His blunt and outspoken personality allowed him to turn a dysfunctional Fiat and a bankrupt Chrysler into a successful global giant. Known around the world for his classic wool, black sweaters (much in the way Steve Jobs is known for his black turtlenecks), Marchionne was especially well known in the enthusiast community for bringing us such vehicles as the Charger/Challenger Hellcat and Challenger Demon. Under his guidance, Marchionne also brought us a Hellcat powered Grand Cherokee, and third generation Viper, and various Ferraris, Fiats, and many other successful and amazing vehicles.

Marchionne was always an interesting character. As mentioned, he was always very blunt and outspoken. He was never keen on the idea of autonomous cars or electric cars. When asked if an autonomous Ferrari would ever be a possibility, he said "you'll have to shoot me first!" He also implored people to NOT buy the Fiat 500e electric car as it was built simply to satisfy California regulatory requirements and FCA was losing money on it. Marchionne also reportedly spent a good portion of 2015 on a quest to merge with another large automaker to reduce inefficiencies and lower costs. General Motors was one of the targets of this quest, but that obviously never happened.

It's hard to imagine many other people who would be able to pull off what Marchionne did for the automotive world. His recovery of Fiat, acquisition of Chrysler and the subsequent creation of a global car empire are nothing short of amazing. If there were two faults with him, it was the fact that the man was ruthless and a bit of a workaholic, both of which probably weighed on him towards the end of his tenure. Nonetheless, Marchionne spent 14 years at the helm of Fiat and then FCA, making him one of the longest serving chief executives in the automotive industry.

With Marchionne's passing, one thing is certain: the automotive industry just lost one of its most interesting people.

Editorial: These Auto Manufacturers Wants to Make It Illegal to Work On Your Car

Image courtesy of Eric Peters Autos

For most gear heads, one of the best parts about owning an automobile is the satisfaction you get from working on it with your own two hands. Whether it is doing something as simple as changing the oil, or something far more complicated like an engine swap, nothing beats the feeling you get once you have completed working on a project on your car. As cars get more and more advanced technologies though, working on them has proven increasingly difficult. More and more, cars are controlled by complex networks of computers, managing every aspect of the vehicle including how the engine performs. Even the level of sophistication continues to increase for even the most amateur of mechanics, it does not mean gear heads cannot learn to adapt and find ways to modify the car's computer.

Image courtesy of  Tricks Guide

Unfortunately, there is a group of auto manufacturers that do not want gear heads to be able to work on their own vehicles anymore, and to make tampering or modifying your vehicle a punishable offense. How do they plan to do this? Because cars are so computer dependent now, this group of manufacturers want to declare modern cars as "mobile computing devices." So these manufacturers want to basically call cars rolling computers, but how does that prevent us gear heads from working on our own cars? By using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA for short. Sounds insane, right? This group of manufacturers wants to declare modifying a car's computer software or anything that could have an effect on the car's computer a violation of the DMCA. I understand that there are safety issues involved in working on a car, but as the owner of the vehicle, should not that be owner's problem to worry about?

It gets worse though.

Test Drive: 2015 Chrysler 200S

Let's be honest, the last generation Chrysler 200 was just plain. Plain awful. It really had no redeeming qualities as the interior was a dreadful place to be and it was so boring to drive, I was surprised that I managed to complete that trip without ending up in a ditch somewhere after falling asleep at the wheel. Luckily, the folks at the new, post-Fiat acquisition, Chrysler saw fit to replace the soporific old 200 with a brand new sedan that not only looks fantastic inside and out, but they also built it on a brand new chassis and added some new drivetrains that should help the 200 finally be a genuine competitor in the crowded mid-size segment.

From when I first laid eyes on the car at the New York International Auto Show earlier this year, I knew that I had to find the chance to take one for a spin. During a recent trip to the DC area, I had the opportunity to pick up a relatively new (just over 2500 miles on the clock) Chrysler 200 as my ride for a weekend.

Events: 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show

2014 marks the first year in a while that East Brother and I were able to attend the Los Angeles Auto Show together. With two people at the show, we were able to cover much more of the cars and test drives that I ever was able to do on my own. We arrived at 9am, right as the doors opened. East Brother went in to cover the new cars while I started on the various test drive events. Here are some highlights from this year's Los Angeles Auto Show.

Daydreams: The Plymouth Prowler

In the first post of our new ongoing series, Daydreams gives us the opportunity to examine cars that struck a cord with us as children, only to discover as adults that they were not all that we imagined. West Brother kicks us off with one of the more imaginative cars from his childhood and shares his thoughts on it now. If you are interested in contributing to the series as a guest, please contact us.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

As I was driving back home from work one evening, a bright yellow car caught my attention. As it got closer and made its left turn, its shape looked strikingly familiar. The hot-rod like profile, open-wheel race car style front wheels, and soft convertible top seemed to drum up memories from when I was much  younger. It finally dawned on me as I began to drive away: it was a Plymouth Prowler. I had not seen one of these cars in years!

When I was a kid, I did not know much about cars. I always thought they just looked cool. At the time, the Plymouth Prowler was the pinnacle of cool to me, with its outrageous shape and unique styling that drew on the classic American hot rods. The first time I encountered one of these machines, I thought to myself, "man, when I get my driver's license, this is the car I want to drive! I bet I would look so cool in this thing!" As I grew up, and my knowledge of cars began to expand, my interests moved on to other vehicles. It was not until I entered high school and began understanding the inner workings of automobiles, power-to-weight ratios, and other important automotive measurements that I realized the Prowler, despite its cool looks, was a real dog.

Events: The New York International Auto Show

The Big Apple put on a good show this year. I drove into town on Friday afternoon and had a nice time catching up with a friend I had not seen in a while. With an early start on Saturday, I got to take advantage of New York's world class public transit system, including the fairly recently installed Citibike bike-sharing service, and arrived at the Javits Center bright and early. Waiting in line, I had a chance to chat with a lovely couple, who also had come down from Boston to attend the auto show, and observe the chaos that was caused by the governor deciding that he wanted to make an appearance. Taking advantage of early entry, I was able to spend some quality time with a number of cars, shoot a lot of photos, and generally enjoy my long day.

Toyota wins the prize for being the most ADD at the show, with not only a huge number of cars, but also all sorts of entertainment options such as racing simulators, distracted driving simulators, fuel cell car ride-alongs, and much much more. GM looses points for figuring out how to get stuck in its own wing away from the rest of the show, making it less crowded, but also less inviting, although their display was quite plentiful. The biggest losers were supercars, which were poorly represented with only one local dealer bringing a few to show. The biggest winners were almost certainly consumers, who got to see just how good cars of gotten in the last decade.

Below, we take a look at a number of the significant vehicles from the show and I offer my thoughts about each. You can also view the full gallery of photos from the show in our Photo Gallery.

Test Drive: 2013 Chrysler 200 Touring

It had been a rough morning already. The first rental car of the day experienced engine trouble and the second one had the misfortune of being rear-ended shortly after leaving the rental lot. I had just spent the better part of the morning sorting out the details from the accident and finding my way back to the rental car agency to pick up my third car of the morning. By this time, I was looking for something that would be reliable transportation and, knock on wood, would not attract any more bad luck. Imagine my disappointment when the options I got presented with included another Nissan (my history so far that day with Nissan had been far from confidence inspiring) and a Chrysler 200. Seeing as how my options were basically non-existent, I accepted the Chrysler 200, hoping that some of the magic Chrysler had managed with the 300 had rubbed off.

Test Drive: 2012 Chrysler 300

The Chrysler 300 has always inspired mixed feelings from me. When it was first introduced, the pill-box shape and slightly retro-charm of the overall profile felt sort of cool and unique, while the re-introduction of a Hemi branded motor inspired thoughts of tire-smoking hilarity. However, the garbage interior combined with the sheer number of rappers and posers driving around in the things sporting the fake chrome Bently style grilles and ginormous blingy wheels quickly quashed any desire to be seen within 10-feet of one. Yet, post acquisition by Fiat, the revised Chrylser 300 has managed to somehow shake off its reputation and has been subtly re-imagined as a proper gentleman's sedan. The changes throughout the car, inside and out, offer an opportunity for this once maligned bling-mobile to shed the image and once again enter the ranks of respectable businessman's sedans.

Editorial: Tumultuous Love Affair with the American Car

A matter of years ago, the US automotive industry was on the brink of implosion - sales to consumers had shrunk to dangerous levels, GM shuttered many of its historic brands in an effort to consolidate, and the foreign automakers were fast on the rise; eating everyone's lunch along the way. But earlier this year the revival of the US automakers became evident with the triumphant introduction of the seventh generation Corvette at Cobol Hall during the Detroit Auto Show. America's love affair with the American car has been burning bright again and Detroit has been making every effort to put the dark years behind it.

2014 Corvette Stingray (Photo courtesy of Chevrolet.com)

And yet, while there have been some tremendous efforts in recent years (the Ford Mustang and recently updated Chrysler 300 come to mind), I still feel like there is a lack of substance beneath the veneer of recovery. Due to my day job, I travel a fair amount and that means spending a fair amount of time behind the wheel of various rental in a variety of different locations throughout the US. This means that, along with my regular testing of cars for this blog, I get to sit in and drive a lot of cars, some of which I spend a fair amount of time with. As is typical, a lot of the cars end up being from US automakers who still make large fleet sales a sizable part of their sales numbers.

On paper, many of these cars appear competitive, offering attractive designs, loads of standard equipment, and reasonable pricing. In terms of innovation, most of these cars are a stutter step behind their foreign competitors as far being on the cutting edge, but there are areas where these cars are doing a fine job pushing the envelope. Point for point, they feel like they should be on par with their foreign counterparts, but as I spend time with them, I find that it does not take a deep scratch to expose what is really beneath the surface.

Take the Cadillac ATS, the most recent effort out of Detroit to take on the perennial sport-sedan favorite BMW 3-Series. While the latest 3-series is no longer the ultimate driving machine that the earlier generation cars were, improvements in technology and engineering still make it a formidable competitor for American pocketbooks. The ATS, on paper, offers a product that goes toe-to-toe with the 3-series in just about every measure, even coming within millimeters of the 3-series in virtually all exterior dimensions. Yet, the moment I stepped up to the ATS and examined it up close, the gap between the quality of the two cars became immediately apparent.

2013 Cadillac ATS (Photo courtesy of Cadillac.com)

Starting on the outside of the ATS, simple things like trim-pieces look downright cheap up close and the little details such as sharpness of execution of door sill plates or the assembly of the trim in the trunk seem noticeably of poorer quality. Moving to the driver's seat, while the immediate visual impression is that everything appears of quality, running my hands over the materials reveals a very different impression, with harsh grain patters, hard plastics, and the general tactile feedback not meeting the expectations set by the visual inspection. Move from the front seats to the back, however, and even the visual sense of quality begins to disappear as materials noticeably cheapen and things increasingly feel like afterthoughts.

Fire up the engine and two things immediately catch my attention: 1) the noise that the engine makes upon start-up was not given much consideration because it just sounds pedestrian and 2) the gauge cluster feels cheap somehow, despite the full-color LCD in the middle of it. Get on the road and the driving impression begins to reinforce the impressions left by the rest of car - the suspension is firm and provides fantastic grip, but gets unsettled easily; the steering is responsive without being communicative. Cadillac checked every single box it needed to check to make this car competitive on paper with the 3-series, and yet, the sum of the parts feels like it is just adding up a little short.

This is my overwhelming sense when driving cars from American manufacturers these days is that, on paper, they make wonderfully competitive cars that check all of the right boxes individually, but on whole, the cars lack a cohesiveness that German and Japanese automakers have managed to engineer into their cars with an attention to detail that still eludes US automakers. Every time I drive an American car, I feel like each individual component was assigned to an engineering team to complete, but nobody thought to take a step back and look at the car as a whole to make sure every component played well with every other one.

2012 Chrysler 300 (Photo courtesy of Motortrend.com)

One possible exception to this is the recently re-engineered Chrysler 300 sedan I spent a weekend with last year. Somehow, especially when compared with the previous rendition, everything felt like it clicked. It felt like there was a grand vision for how everything should feel and that every component contributed to that vision. Things did not feel like they were individually created to a spec, but rather the whole car was designed with a singular goal in mind. It made the car feel like it was more than just a collection of parts and my experience with it was therefore immensely improved as a result.

In the end, I am pleased that US automakers are at least trending in the right direction again. Ford, GM, and Chrysler have all made tremendous strides in the right direction and are finally putting out cars that, on paper, are able to match the capabilities of their foreign competitors. The next step that will allow them to truly match their competition would be to capture that essence of cohesiveness that is still sorely lacking in so many of their efforts. To do that, perhaps they need to start re-thinking how their cars are engineered or perhaps consider a shake-up of how the product requirements are identified when they are planning their new cars.

I genuinely want to like American cars. In fact, my father would love to go back to owning a big American sedan and my father-in-law would love to make his next car entirely made and assembled in these United States. The car that is closest to meeting my criteria is unfortunately too large for my tastes and not nearly sporty enough. Nothing else I have driven to date from a US automaker offers quite the right blend of qualities to capture my interest. Maybe I am just not in their target demographic or maybe I am just being too exacting, but whatever the case, a consumer like me is one that US automakers should seriously consider when they design their next generation of cars.

Perhaps building to that next level of exacting standards is precisely what US automakers need to do to get their cars to finally add up to more than the sum of their parts.