In my circles Chrysler has been known for many engineering break-throughs
most of which fell short in the execution.
But please, let's not divert from the entertaining Leica bashing. :-)
it's somewhat closer to the supposed topic of this forum.
And here I thought the supposed topic of this forum was Pentax !
Kenneth Waller
http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/kennethwaller
----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Colen" <[email protected]>
Subject: Fwd: OT: The Leica T succeeds in pissing me off.
Begin forwarded message:
From: Godfrey DiGiorgi <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: OT: The Leica T succeeds in pissing me off.
Date: April 27, 2014 at 1:52:14 PM PDT
To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <[email protected]>
Reply-To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <[email protected]>
Far as I'm concerned, Paul, Chrysler was always a failure. Even worse crap
than GM. I'm glad the Italians control them now.
MOPAR has made some winners and some losers. At 200,000 miles, many of
which spent towing, my van is starting to show it’s age, but I bet it’ll
still do a better job of towing your Mercedes than your Mercedes will do
towing it. As to performance, it has probably turned a faster lap time at
Thunderhill than your Mercedes ever has as well. With 360 God fearing all
American cubic inches the mileage isn’t the best, but if I put in all of the
seats and didn’t drive with a lead foot, I could probably get upwards of 130
passenger miles per gallon.
Yeah, my tongue spent a bit of time in my cheek in the above paragraph, but
every car company has strengths and weaknesses. I’m glad that you like your
car, that’s all that matters for you. The only car Mercedes has made in
recent memory that has held any appeal to me is the Smart, but I’m not into
luxobarges. On the other hand Chrysler made the Viper GTS, and until you’ve
had eight liters of V10 pass you on the track at full song you simply cannot
comprehend the concept of priapism in a can.
Everyone in the automotive industry that I’ve heard or read has pretty much
said what Paul did. Daimler came in, raped over Chrysler. When there seems
to be a consensus among people who know more about the automotive industry
than you do about Apple computers, I suspect that there might be something
to what they say. I might not ask Paul for advice on which iPad to buy, but
considering that he’s worked for both of the auto companies under
discussion, I have a hunch that he’s not just blowing smoke out of his ass.
And Audi is a brand-engineered VW.
And Porsches are nothing but VWs with a hormone imbalance, or as I’ve heard
them described “A really bad idea that has been meticulously perfected”.
Even so, you might want to chat with John Buffum about Audis deficiencies.
But please, let's not divert from the entertaining Leica bashing. :-)
it's somewhat closer to the supposed topic of this forum.
I don’t think anyone has serious complaints with Leicas, just their prices
and some of the people who own them.
:-)
Godfrey
On Apr 27, 2014, at 1:40 PM, Paul Stenquist <[email protected]>
wrote:
Oh my! You do invent your own reality, don’t your? I was there when
Daimler and Chrysler “merged," working on the Chrysler ad biz, so I’ll
educate you. Chrysler never owend" Daimler. Eaton and the rest of
Chrysler mangement sold out to Daimler for a huge amount of cash.
Daimller was calling all the shots. Hell, they sent Dieter Zetsche, who
is now Daimler CEO, here to run the Chrylser group. (Zetsche was a nice
guy. We had a good time at Daytona when Dodge premiered in NASCAR, but
his loyalty was definitely to the motherland.) At the time, Mercedes was
not doing well, but Chrysler had 9 billion dollars in the bank. Daimler
emptied Chrysler’s piggy bank in a matter of years, then left town,
leaving a broke and decimated Chrylser behind. Cerebus dragged the
carcass around for a few years, then Marchione came to town and saved
Chrysler. Unlike Daimler, Marchione really means it. He wants Chrylser to
succeed. And they are.
I worked on the Mercede-Benz ad biz as well at McCaffrey & McCall in the
1980s. (My commercial, “Interview” iis still considered the best Mercedes
spot of all time and it won the Gold Clio for best automotive spot of
1990.) Mercedes was on a roll when I wrote that commercial, but withing
months Lexus and Infiniti came on the scene, and Daimler panicked. They
told me they could no longer be “Emgineered Like No Other Car In the
World.” It was too arrogant. And they took a lot of content out of the
cars so they could match the prices of the Japanese cars. I bailed and
went to Detroit, and Mercedes quality declined. But the Germans are smart
and they have a huge pool of engineering talent to draw on. Mercedes has
made gains in recent years, but they never quite recovred. In many ways,
they still trail BMW and Audi. And of course it’s heresy in the PC world,
but Cadillac is producing better products than Mercedes for some
segments — the ATS vs. the C-Class and the CTS vs. the E-class. Mercedes
has a future, but they’re not the world leader they were in the 1980s.
Here’s “Interview,” if you’d like to see it:
http://stenquist.org/Paul/MercedesEngineer.htm
On Apr 27, 2014, at 4:13 PM, Godfrey DiGiorgi <[email protected]>
wrote:
Plenty of them around here. But their quality did suffer a bit through
the years of Chrysler ownership. They were sensible to get rid of
Chrysler, even at a loss.
G
On Apr 26, 2014, at 2:42 PM, Paul Stenquist <[email protected]>
wrote:
Not many ten year old Mercs though. Intimately familiar with that
company. Unfortunately.
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