Daniel Howes

So far, Fiat leaders fail to impress at Chrysler

Don't know whether Sergio Marchionne and the boys from Fiat SpA -- men of fewer words than Bob Nardelli -- can save Chrysler Group LLC. But know this:

They're good at cashiering Chrysler execs, the latest wave coming Monday. Second, they're prepared to defy received wisdom, namely the conviction that spreading scarce resources over fewer brands (say Ford, Toyota and Honda) is preferable to the opposite.

Apparently not so in Auburn Hills, where the Italian cut to things includes creating a separate Ram truck brand out of Dodge (now, amid a greening America?) and pushing Chrysler upscale (again). Meaning Chrysler is on track to field as many U.S. brands as rival General Motors Co., a dubious first in an industry where fewer typically ends up being worth more.

And third: The White Knights of Torino aren't held to the same rules as GM. Its marketing plans, executive pay decisions, plant and product calls, cultural change efforts, board members -- you name it -- are all a) public and b) influenced by minions in the U.S. Treasury and the few White House staffers still seconded to the auto bailouts.

How'd Sergio manage to dodge so much of that, anyway? And what does the comparative lack of transparency augur for a company whose current and most recently former controlling owners give new meaning to the term "lack of accountability?"

Chrysler is owned by the American taxpayers and the United Auto Workers' health care trust. Its dealers are trying to sell cars and trucks to American consumers. The owners don't know where they're going or how they plan to get there; and the would-be customers don't know where they are, much less where they're headed.

Dunno how you'd say it in Italian, but in American slang that's a big steaming pile of not good. The longer Sergio & Co. go without articulating a coherent strategy for post-bankruptcy Chrysler, or shape the direction of current and future products, the greater the risk to its sales and the credibility of its brands among consumers.

This isn't happening in a vacuum. Chrysler and its people, the most abused of any work force in the global auto industry this side of China, are living on borrowed time. Again. Their new owners say they inherited a mess from the last guys, whose stewardship amounted to trashing the brands and gutting the product pipeline. Again.

The White House auto task force, despite a predisposition to the needs of the UAW, was prepared to let Chrysler disappear until the enormity of likely job losses pushed the president's decision through an archly political lens, setting the parameters for GM's forced bankruptcy.

GM wanted to cherry-pick the best parts of Chrysler, leaving the rest for the liquidators, until the dire circumstances of its own comeuppance made that impossible. And the Italians' plump for Chrysler didn't include any cash, because they didn't have the capital to invest and they'd concluded it wouldn't be a wise investment anyway.

After the massive cash burns that consumed Chrysler's previous two owners -- Daimler AG and Cerberus Capital Management LP -- and destroyed a piece of their business cred, who could blame Fiat for keeping its corporate wallet shut while seizing a perceived opportunity on the cheap?

Chrysler has been a cash incinerator for the past decade, helped by successive owners whose chief goal ended up being to milk the pentastar for all they could get. Fiat stands to be the third such controlling force until it displays, by its positive actions, that it isn't.

In his primary job, Marchionne runs a middling European automaker with geographically limited appeal. Yes, he depantsed GM in the deal of the decade, wresting $2 billion from then-CEO Rick Wagoner to go away, and yes, he persuaded Team Obama to finance Fiat's return to the lucrative North American market.

But he's yet to show what he can do with Detroit's No. 3 automaker, beyond shuffling execs and wowing a few Birmingham watering holes with Italian accents. Time to put up.

dchowes@detnews.com (313) 222-2106 Daniel Howes' column runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays