The last man to lead a joint-venture between a European brand and the American Chrysler Group has weighed into the debate over the company's future. Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche has cautioned Fiat not to focus too much on small, economical cars at the expense of large cars and SUVs.
Daimler spent US$36billion investing in Chrysler in 1998 only to hand over and 80.1 per cent stake to Cerberus Capital Management in 2008 as the Chrysler brands struggled.
Speaking to newspaper USA Today, Zetsche said that he was following the fate of his former company closely.
"I continue to be emotional about this company and am crossing my fingers for the very best future," Zetsche said.
Fiat's recently revealed five-year plan put an emphasis on utilising the Italian firm's small car expertise to underpin the next generation of Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep products. But Zetsche believes the US market is still hooked on larger vehicles.
"I would not focus exclusively on small cars going forward," he said. "I do believe the successful continuation of SUVs and larger cars is necessary."
Zetsche comments come as several leading political figures make high profile attacks on Chrysler. Former presidential candidate Senator John McCain slammed the company and its unions during last weekend's NASCAR race in Phoenix, where he was Grand Marshall.
As a high-ranking member of the Republican Party, McCain continued its attack on President Barrack Obama's decision to use US taxpayer money to bail out the car companies.
"No, I don't think we ever should have bailed out Chrysler and General Motors," McCain said. "We should have let them go into bankruptcy, emerge and become viable corporations again."
"It was all about the unions," he added. "The unions didn't want to have their very generous contracts renegotiated so we put $80 billion into both General Motors and Chrysler, and anybody believes that Chrysler is going to survive, I'd like to meet them."
McCain's views on the powerful Detroit-based unions are no doubt coloured by the increasing number of foreign manufacturers setting up factories in Republican states in the south of the US.
"We see the automotive industry, and my heart goes out to the citizens of Detroit, really in the tank, and yet we have manufacturing plants all over the South, which are not bound by some of the labor rules and contracts that make them non-competitive," McCain said.
BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Nissan, Volkswagen and Hyundai have all established manufacturing plants in Republican strong states.
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