To Cerberus Capital Management, the New York-based private equity firm that just bought Chrysler from DaimlerChrysler, congratulations and … what do you mean I'm being laid off? I don't even work for you guys!
So far, the company is off to a rousing start. It was widely expected that Cerberus would name Wolfgang Bernhard, former executive for Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen, to be Chrysler's chairman-CEO. Instead, over the weekend the company named Robert Nardelli, former chief executive and notorious hammer of Home Depot, who recently earned glory in the annals of executive compensation when he pocketed a $210-million severance package after being kicked out by disgruntled shareholders. Unlike Bernhard, who is a car guy to the bone, Nardelli has no experience in the auto business. A company utterly besieged by bean counters has just hired Mr. Bean.
Now, much of this is inside-baseball stuff that probably wouldn't interest consumers: Can the famously abrasive Nardelli mend relations with Chrysler's alienated dealer network? Can he reach across the table at upcoming labor talks with anything other than a shiv? Will Nardelli, a Red State royalist who has held fundraisers at his Atlanta home for President Bush, get behind a national health care agenda that many in Detroit feel would give domestic automakers some breathing room?
Or will Nardelli and the three-headed dog merely flip Chrysler, which is to say, cut it down to a semblance of profitability and sell it? That would be the equivalent of stealing coins off a dead man's eyes.
Assuming that Nardelli is more than a bagman, the question then becomes: Does he know a good car from a bad one?
I can help. I recommend he go down to the motor pool and check out the keys to a 2008 Chrysler Sebring Convertible, preferably the Limited model with the retractable hardtop. See, Bob, that's a bad one.
Not just bad, but a veritable chalice of wretchedness, a rattling, thumping, lolling tragedy of a car, a summary indictment of Chrysler's recent management and its self-eradicating product planning, all cast in plastic worthy of a Chinese water pistol. The Sebring drop top does something I thought impossible: It makes me long for the exquisite craftsmanship of the Pontiac flipping G6.
Oh, and the Sebring Convertible is homely, too.
On a more positive note, if Nardelli wants to kick off a product renaissance at least he'll have a baseline.
