The Automotive Industry: A Story of Mergers and Missteps

When it comes to the automotive industry, there have been many mergers and acquisitions over the years, each with its own set of successes and failures. One such merger that is often cited as a prime example of how not to do things is Jaguar's acquisition by Indian and Chinese investors in 2008. Half-owned by both parties, Jaguar faced significant challenges, including low quality cars and a decline in sales. The company's reputation suffered to the point where even its own headquarters in China became the site of protests from Chinese consumers who were unhappy with the subpar products being sold.

This phenomenon is not unique to Jaguar alone. GM's acquisition of Saab, another Swedish car manufacturer, also ended in disaster. Saab was known for producing high-tech, high-quality cars that were reliable and long-lasting. However, once under GM's ownership, the company's fortunes began to decline rapidly. The result was a brand that is now synonymous with unreliability and poor quality. In contrast, Volvo, another Swedish car manufacturer, has fared much better since being acquired by General Motors. Volvo has continued to produce cars that are both high-tech and reliable, solidifying its reputation as one of the top Swedish car manufacturers.

In recent years, there have been several other mergers and acquisitions in the automotive industry that have had significant consequences. One notable example is the merger between Renault and Nissan in 2000. While the two companies were already partners at the time, their partnership took a sharp turn for the worse once Renault's influence became too dominant. As a result, Nissan's quality began to decline significantly, with many customers reporting problems with their vehicles after just a few years of ownership. The situation only worsened over time, leading many fans of Nissan to swear off the brand altogether.

Lamborghini is another car manufacturer that has been involved in several high-profile mergers and acquisitions. In 1987, Chrysler acquired the Italian sports car company, hoping to tap into its luxury brand reputation. However, the deal ultimately proved unsuccessful, with Lamborghini's cars being criticized for their poor quality and lack of reliability. The situation was further complicated when Chrysler attempted to create a new model based on Lamborghini parts, but unfortunately, it didn't quite work out as planned. The resulting car was essentially just a rebadged Chrysler model, with few redeeming qualities.

The merger between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and the French company PSA Group has also been met with skepticism by many fans of both brands. While the deal promises to create a more competitive player in the global automotive market, it's hard not to wonder what will happen when these two very different companies finally come together under one roof. With Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' reputation for producing reliable cars like the 300 and Dodge Charger facing off against PSA Group's reputation for producing high-tech cars like the Peugeot 208, it's anyone's guess what will emerge from this union.

In conclusion, the automotive industry is a complex and often unpredictable business, with many mergers and acquisitions having significant consequences for the brands involved. Whether it's the struggles of Jaguar, the missteps of Saab, or the challenges faced by Lamborghini under Chrysler's ownership, there are plenty of lessons to be learned from these experiences. As consumers, it's more important than ever to do our research and make informed decisions when purchasing a car, lest we fall prey to the pitfalls of the automotive industry's most recent mergers and acquisitions.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enrev up your engines there's a gigantichistory of companies merging with othercompanies companies taking over otherconferences I can tell you about thefive that ended up with the worstsituation possible when they did gettogether and either merge or one company buying out the other now the first I'mgonna talk about is Volkswagen takingover Porsche and Audi they started on theirown after world war two actually theyoffered them to the Americans said youwant this company and they said we don'twant that you can have your own companyso Volkswagen started with the lowlybeetle and made a lot of money makingreliable inexpensive easy to repair longlasting little carswell decades later it wasn't a marriagemade in heaven it actually went thewrong way at least for the consumerstaking over Porsche and Audi known forover complex highly engineered extremelyhard and expensive to repair cars itoften broke down before their time andif you ask me and I've been working on carsfor 52 years so I got a littleexperience in this, what happened is thisVolkswagen then took a lot of this hightechnology from Porsche and Audi put itin their Volkswagens which now becamemore expensive much less reliable andsuper higher expensive vehicles to fixwhile Porsche and Audi took on cheaperpart of Volkswagen it became cheaper made and had more problems got into like porschepremium sports cars to drive aroundwell let's start making some cheaperones little bitty Porsches with themotor in the middle and that was aPorsche Boxster it combined the worstsupporting Volkswagen together now itwas the lowest price Porsche still itwasn't giving away yeah they were likethe Beatles they were really low pricebut quality wasn't there thepower and handling wasn't there eitherthey were using the name Porscheto make a cheaper sports car as I saidwith Volkswagen put all this high-techPorsche technology into the Volkswagens they nowbecome terrible cars to repair superexpensive and if you find anyone whobuys a Volkswagen the last 10 years itsays oh they were so happy with the carhey have them contact me I'd love to meet somebody who's living in a fantasy worldbecause every single customer that I'vehad in the last 15 years who bought a vwand said they never buy another oneFiat Chrysler there's a real shocker foryou the merger of an Italian companyknown for low qualityhaving breakdown cars that just didn'tlast long with Chrysler a company thathad pretty much the same reputation andyes things did get works for both sideshere it's so bad that today Fiats eventalking about pulling their Fiat brandout of the United States entirelybecause nobody will buy the stupidthings in Chrysler quality hey of courseFiat they plan on selling their Fiats atthe Chrysler dealers but that failedbut they still insidiously a lot of theChrysler's now have fiat enginestransmissions and the known for nothaving any quality and I have to say thesame thing as I did with Volkswagen inthe last 20 years none of my customersthat bought a Chrysler product everbought a second one they said yeah thatwas one of the worst cars I've ever hadI'll never buy another one of thosechrysler products and of course there'sall kinds of sneaky things like thatJeep renegade they call this rebadgedFiat 500 four-wheel drive vehicle a Jeeprenegade using the name of Jeep when ithas absolutely nothing to do with jeepsand their history ah just the Fiatrebadge is a Jeep that was bad not theChrysler I said recall problems with thethings breaking well so does fiatsyou just piled mistake on top of mistakewith that one, now another merger when GMtook over saab well we all know howthey ended up saab now doesn't evenexist as a company so they're completelyout of the picture well that probablyhastened the end of saab as far as i'mconcernedGM bot side in 2000 they paid they had all kinds of deals going but the deal was donewith 125 million bucks sothat's not all that much money tellingyou that Saab really wasn't worth allthat much now saab always pulled the game thatSaab we're the company that makesSwedish fighter planes well it's arelated company but I mean the guysbuilding the cars weren't the samepeople to rebuild the planes and at anyrate the sobs were known as extremelyover engineered cars were a lot of themhad the engines in backwards the frontof the engine was by the firewall theback was by the radiator and then youhad to pull the engine out to do allkinds of jobs there were horrendous carsfor working on and in 2000 GM certainlynot known for quality either theythemselves went bankrupt what were they thinking I guess GM was thinking Saab isLuxur European brand let's add it to ourstable of cars in that respect Iguess they were trying to be like forddid stuff with Jaguar how did that workout you know half owned by the Indians and half owned by the Chinese and Jaguar sobad a few months ago even the Chinesewere protesting the low quality of theJaguars they bought at the headquartersin China where 50% is owned even theChinese were revolting against thesecars a terrible it falling apart otherGM acquisition to saab hey far as I'mconcerned that led to the demise of Saabeven faster in the end Saab we're makingunreliable high-tech garbage now wayback in the day Saab and Volvo alwayscompeted hey which is the better Swedishcar manufacturers that were kind of anoddball car here in the United States atleast thought think it lasts a long timethey were solid built back when GMgot them the handwriting was on thewall that didn't lead to anything goodreally other than getting rid of a carmanufacturer that made expensive hightech cars that broke down all the timenow the next merger renault and nissanwas one of the worst as far as I'mconcerned for mass production of carsbecause together they do make a lot ofcars now I can't speak of the Frenchcars right now because they don't sellthem here in the United States theypulled out decades ago but as for Nissantook over in 2000 called a and Nissanstarted going downhill I had customersback in the 90s and 80s had Nissan's itrun forever they are great cars theystarted getting cheaper and cheaper usedto be that hey a Nissan Altima you canget three four hundred thousand milesout of it but since renault took overespecially from mid to late 2000squality of Nissan's has taken a sharpdive down the toilet which is a shamecuz Nissan originally Datsun used tomake some really good cars they couldmake little puddle jumpers that gotphenomenal gas mileage too really nicesports cars that were fast handled welland still had a tendency of lastingquite some time if you didn't beat themtoo much as I tell people today valueyour money don't buy a modern-day Nissanquality's not there like it used to beI see mufflers fall off when they're threeyears old my 94 celica still has theoriginal muffler on it and it doesn'tmake any noise one of the perhapsstrangest bad yes but strange was themerger of Chrysler and Lamborghini a lotof people don't even know this back in1987 Chrysler bought Lamborghini yeahthe crazy high-tech exotic Italiansports car company a lot of people saidI was just a PR move but they didactually buy the company and just likeChrysler at one point in time madeChrysler Maserati car it was called theChrysler TC by Maserati the worst carever madethey weren't rolling piles of junkthey're ugly as could be they wereChrysler k-car base but they had manyparts on them and the funniest thing soI Jack the car up and I look under itand I see there's a muffler gone to theengine and then there is a fake one thatdoesn't go anywhere just to show it atdual exhaust just as an ornament ofcourse the winner you could tell customsmoke would come out on one side but the other wouldn't do anything cuz wasn'tconnected a to be fair ChryslerI've always had problems and exoticItalian sports cars like Lamborghinibarely know a handful of carextremely wealthy people buying acompany like that at least when Ford hadJaguar they had a company been around a really long time they make quite a few cars andthey thought they could buy a luxurybrand instead of designing it themselvesof course that fell through to block theChrysler Lamborghini Marisa that's righta little over six years then Lamborghini was sold to aninvestment group and then they were soldto Volkswagen a year later I meanLamborghini is like a hot potato youknow who wants to get caught with a hotpotato and hanneke passed to somebodyelse who knows what the future willbring especially with the talks thatFiat Chrysler is gonna merge with theFrench company pues yo you get FiatChrysler I have French company allgetting together that would truly be theThree Stooges making carsI would pity anybody who buy one ofthose cars but it would certainly giveme some talking points and things towarn people about cuz I my's trying tohelp people out to make a logicaldecision when they buy a car and thatwould be the most theological thing toget involved with those three companiesif it happens, so if you never want tomiss another one of my new car repairvideos, remember to ring that Bell\n"