Daimlerchrysler

Unabated growth in demand for sport-utility vehicles and pickups, driven by a healthy economy and low gasoline prices, helped boost DaimlerChrysler's U.S. vehicle sales a healthy 7% in November and set a record for the month. Demand for light trucks also helped Toyota Motor Corp. post a November sales record with a 21% improvement compared with November 1997. Honda Motor Co. reported that it had a nearly 5% gain.

DaimlerChrysler AG is recalling 906,000 full-size sedans to inspect them for a potential fuel leak that could cause a fire. The recall involves 1993-97 model Chrysler LHS, Concorde, Dodge Intrepid and Eagle Vision cars with 3.5-liter V6 engines, as well as '93 models with the 3.3-liter V6, spokeswoman Sonya Bultynck said in Auburn Hills, Mich. The company has received 16 reports of minor fires, none of which has resulted in injury, she said.

Dennis K. Pawley, the Chrysler executive credited with turning the auto maker's assembly and parts plants into some of the industry's most efficient, said Friday he will retire from the newly merged DaimlerChrysler to become a manufacturing consultant. Pawley, 57, will leave as vice president of North American manufacturing and labor relations Jan. 31, two months after Chrysler and Germany's Daimler-Benz merged to become the world's fifth-largest auto maker.

In the first ruling of its kind, a New York federal court jury Friday found DaimlerChrysler Corp. partly responsible for the death of a 5-year-old boy who was killed when an air bag deployed during a head-on collision. The jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan said the world's fifth-largest auto maker was 50% responsible for Michael Liz Crespo's death, and awarded the boy's family $750,000.

DaimlerChrysler's sales rose 13% in 1998 to $155 billion, according to an initial estimate, the auto maker said Thursday. The increase compares with combined 1997 sales of $137 billion for Daimler-Benz and Chrysler Corp., which merged earlier this year. A spokesman for the world's fifth-largest auto maker said it would release its first-ever results for the merged company Sunday, and provide more detail on sales and give a broad assessment of the 1998 earnings trend.

DaimlerChrysler, created from a merger of two of the world's most venerable car concerns, held a financial coming-out party Tuesday that may herald a new era of global automotive competition. But behind the hoopla surrounding the combination of Chrysler Corp. and Daimler-Benz of Germany remains the difficult task of melding two huge institutions with proud heritages and vastly different cultures. It won't be easy.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index will not list the stock that will result from the merger of Chrysler Corp. and Germany's Daimler-Benz, citing its long-standing policy of not including non-U.S. companies in the index. The omission will force mutual funds that buy stocks to reflect the performance of the S&P 500 to sell Chrysler holdings. Chrysler said it was disappointed with the decision but "confident that many other leading indices will embrace" DaimlerChrysler.