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This colorfully graffiti-ed wall is one of many "sights" in the picturesquely decayed, vacant Fisher Body Plant in Detroit. The factory, opened in 1919 as the early automaking boom got underway, went idle around 1984 and has been vacant since the early 90s. Reportedly plans are underway to redevelop the structure into affordable housing. Seen in 2022.
Hommage by EffiArt2012
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, genannt „Butzi“ (* 11. Dezember 1935 in Stuttgart; † 5. April 2012 in Salzburg),
war ein deutscher-österreichischer Industriedesigner und der Gründer der Porsche Design GmbH.
Er war der älteste Sohn von Ferry Porsche, ein Enkel von Ferdinand Porsche und Cousin von Ferdinand Piëch, dem ehemaligen Vorstandsvorsitzenden und jetzigen Aufsichtsratsvorsitzenden der Volkswagen AG.
a street shot! here: Porsche 911, G-Series.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_911_classic
Porsche 911 classics
The original Porsche 911 (pronounced as nine eleven, German: Neunelfer) was a sports car made by Porsche AG of Stuttgart, Germany. The famous, distinctive, and durable design was introduced in autumn 1963 and built until 1989.
It was succeeded by a modified version, internally referred to as Porsche 964 but still sold as Porsche 911, as are current models.
Bye Bye "Butzi". Porsche 911 Designer : Ferdinand Alexander Porsche.
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche , known as FA after his initials, aka "Butzi" , died (5. April 2012) in Stuttgart aged 76.
The third generation of the immensely talented engineering family to help revolutionise the world of motoring, Butzi's landmark design was the 911
The 911. Our identity. A truly distinctive design. Technology that was born on the race track. Emotional impact that has been standard since 1963.
www.porsche.com/microsite/911/uk.aspx
Porsche 911: Celebration of a Legend
“The new version was mobbed and groped when it was unveiled in September at the Frankfurt auto show,” The Associated Press reported. “Showgoers left the doors and roof smeared with fingerprints as they scrambled for a chance to sit behind the wheel.”
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche was born in Stuttgart on Dec. 11, 1935, and as a boy spent time with his father and his grandfather in the design office in Zuffenhausen. He went to school in Stuttgart and in Switzerland and studied at the Ulm School of Design.
As an engineer working for the Daimler-Benz racing team, Mr. Porsche’s grandfather, Ferdinand, had met Hitler, a racing fan then early in his ascent to power, in the mid-1920s. Mr. Porsche started his own company in the 1930s, and responded quickly when Hitler, as chancellor, directed him to create a car that ordinary Germans could afford.
Ferdinand Porsche and his son, Ferry, created the first prototype for the so-called “people’s car” — the Volkswagen. Hitler approved the design and a factory was built, but the war intervened and production of the Volkswagen was postponed; in the meantime, Porsche built tanks and airplane engines for the Nazi military, employing forced laborers on their assembly lines.
After the war, the influence of the Porsche family on German automaking became dizzyingly complicated. Volkswagen became an independent company, whose first chairman, appointed by the democratic government of Konrad Adenauer, was Anton Piëch, the husband of Louise Porsche, Ferdinand’s daughter.
Their son, Ferdinand Piëch, who began his career at Porsche, became a rival of F. A. Porsche, and in 1972 their enmity forced their parents to banish them from management and restructure Porsche into a public corporation. Mr. Piëch went on to lead Audi and is currently the chairman of Volkswagen, which owns part of Porsche.
After leaving the car company in 1972, F. A. Porsche started Porsche Design, which extended the brand to luggage, sunglasses, pens, cuff links and other items in the high-tech modernist mode. Eventually, Mr. Porsche returned to the parent company, serving as chairman from 1990 to 1993.
Ferdinand Porsche, the company founder, died in 1951. Ferry Porsche died in 1998.
Model year 1974 was the introduction of impact bumpers to conform with low speed protection requirements of US law, these bumpers being so successfully integrated into the design that they remained unchanged for 15 years. In 1989 the engine size was increased to 2687 cc giving an increase in torque. The use of K-Jetronic CIS Bosch fuel injection in two of the three models in the line up— the 911 and 911S models, retaining the narrow rear wings of the old 2.4, now had a detuned version of the RS engine producing 150 and 175 PS (110 and 129 kW) respectively.
(Wikipedia)
- - -
Die erste größere Überarbeitung der 911-Karosserie im Jahre 1973 wurde durch ein US-Gesetz ausgelöst, das bei allen neu zugelassenen Fahrzeugen forderte, einen Stoß bei einer Geschwindigkeit von 5 mph = 8 km/h unbeschadet überstehen zu können. Um den wichtigen US-Markt nicht zu verlieren, wurde der 911er entsprechend mit in die Stoßfänger integrierten Pralldämpfern überarbeitet. Die Pralldämpfer wurden bei Modellen, die nicht für den US-Export bestimmt waren, durch günstigere Prallrohre ersetzt. Diese mussten nach Parkremplern ausgetauscht werden, was bei den elastischen Pralldämpfern nicht nötig war. Die Pralldämpfer konnten als Extra bestellt werden.
Jedes Modelljahr des 911 wird Porsche-intern mit einem Buchstaben bezeichnet. Die Zählung begann Mitte 1967 mit dem Modelljahr 1968 als A-Serie und endete mit dem Modelljahr 1979; der M-Serie (Buchstabe I wurde nicht vergeben). Die Modelle ab 1980 werden als Programm bezeichnet: Modelljahr (Mj.) 1980 als A-Programm bis zum Mj. 2000, dem Y-Programm. Die Buchstaben I, O, U und Q wurden nicht benutzt. Mj. 2001 ist das 1-Programm, Mj. 2002 das 2-Programm u.s.w. Ab Modelljahr 2010 (A-Programm) wird wieder das Alphabet verwendet.
Das G-Modell (korrekt: Die G-Serie) erschien Mitte 1973 (Modelljahr 1974) und der 911 wurde mit dieser Karosserie 16 Jahre bis Mitte 1989 (Ende K-Programm) hergestellt. Obwohl strenggenommen nur das Modelljahr 1974 als „G-Modell" bezeichnet werden darf, werden allgemein alle 911-Typen der Baujahre 1973 bis 1989 so genannt.
Mit dem K-Programm ab Mitte 1988 startete gleichzeitig die Produktion des Nachfolgetyps Porsche 964.
(Wikipedia)
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_911_(1963)
Der Hauptunterschied zwischen dem Urmodell und dem G-Modell sind vor allem die großen Stoßstangen des neueren 911ers – diese sind wuchtiger geraten. Vor allem die faltenartigen Kunststoffübergänge zwischen den Stoßstangen und der Karosserie haben dem Modell den Spitznamen „Faltenbalg-Porsche" eingebracht.
Die vorderen Blinkleuchten wurden von den Kotflügelecken in den Stoßfänger versetzt. Am Heck ist zwischen den Rückleuchten ein durchgehendes rotes Reflektorband mit der Aufschrift „Porsche“ hinzugekommen. Sportlichere Modelle, wie z.B. der Carrera oder der Turbo, haben weiter nach außen ausgestellte Kotflügel vorne und besonders hinten, um breitere Räder aufnehmen zu können. Andere Unterschiede an der Karosserie zu dem Urmodell, wie z.B. der nochmals vergrößerte Radstand, sind optisch kaum zu erkennen.
1973 - 1978 Porsche 911 Carrera G-Modell (02)
---------- 2010 ------------------------------------------------------------ 1963 ----------------
----------- Carrera 4 ---------------------------------------------------- Carrera 2 -----------
----------- 9 9 7 / 2 ---------------------------------------------------------- 356 B -----------
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Porsche Carerra 4 type 997/2 versus Porsche Carrera 2, type 356B
It originally was designated as the "Porsche 901" (901 being its internal project number).
82 cars were built as 901s.
However, Peugeot protested on the grounds that in France it had exclusive rights to car names formed by three numbers with a zero in the middle.
So, instead of selling the new model with another name in France, Porsche changed the name to 911.
F. A. Porsche
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche ist tot
Er hat die Sportwagen-Ikone Porsche 911 gezeichnet. Als Designer und Aufsichtsratschef prägte er das väterliche Unternehmen. Sein Credo: "Gutes Design soll ehrlich sein."
Geboren wurde Ferdinand Alexander Porsche am 11. Dezember 1935 in Stuttgart als Ältester Sohn von Dorothea und Unternehmensgründer Ferry Porsche. 1958 trat "F.A. Porsche", wie seine Mitarbeiter ihn nannten, in das Konstruktionsbüro des Autobauers ein.
"Design muss funktional sein, und die Funktionalität muss visuell in Ästhetik umgesetzt sein, ohne Gags, die erst erklärt werden müssen", lautete sein Credo.
Er meinte: "Ein formal stimmiges Produkt braucht keine Verzierung, es soll durch die reine Form erhöht werden."
Am Donnerstag 5. April 2012 starb Ferdinand Alexander Porsche mit 76.
Ferdinand A. Porsche, who designed the original Porsche 911, the snazzy, powerful sports car that became the lasting signature of the German automobile company founded by his grandfather and later run by his father, died on Thursday in Salzburg, Austria. He was 76.
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche machte sich vor allem als Designer einen Namen. Sein erstes Werk als Leiter des Porsche-Designstudios war der 911, dessen zeitlose Form inzwischen in der siebten Modellgeneration fortlebt. Nachdem er 1972 aus der operativen Führung von Porsche ausschied, entwarf Porsche in seinem "Porsche Design Studio" Uhren, Brillen und Schreibgeräte unter der Sportwagen-Marke.
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche war der Cousin von Volkswagen-Aufsichtsratschef Ferdinand Piech und damit Teil des Familienclans Porsche/Piech, der 90 Prozent der Stammaktien an der Porsche SE und damit indirekt auch die Mehrheit an Volkswagen hält. Ferdinand Alexander Porsche war in der großen Krise Anfang der 1990er Jahre Aufsichtsratschef des Sportwagenbauers Porsche, in der Vorstandschef Wendelin Wiedeking das Ruder herumriss. Bis 2005 gehörte er dem Gremium noch als einfaches Mitglied an.
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche wird im engsten Familienkreis im Familiengrab am Schüttgut in Zell am See beigesetzt. Eine offizielle Trauerfeier findet zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt in Stuttgart statt.
Mr. Porsche, who was known as F. A. and also by the childhood nickname Butzi, was the scion of a family whose roots are entwined with the history of German automaking.
Before founding the company that still bears his name, Mr. Porsche’s grandfather, Ferdinand, worked as an engineer and designer for, among other companies, Daimler-Benz, the makers of Mercedes. And during the early years of the Porsche company in the 1930s, Ferdinand and his son, known as Ferry, created the prototype of the Volkswagen at the direction of Adolf Hitler.
F. A. Porsche joined the family business in 1958, working in the technical design department essentially as an apprentice, immersing himself in the details of engine construction, aerodynamics and body styling. By that time the company, under his father’s direction, had started along the path that would make it famous by turning out exquisitely engineered, elegantly designed roadsters suitable for the highway or the racetrack.
It was Ferry Porsche who had turned his own father’s business from strictly an engineering and design company into a manufacturer as well, and he designed its first product, a lightweight rear-engine roadster, the Porsche 356, which was introduced in 1948 and put into wide production in 1950.
Toward the end of the 1950s, however, Ferry Porsche decided to create a replacement model for the company’s signature automobile, and several proposals from designers both within and outside the company were rejected as either too closely tied to the 356 or not tied closely enough to the distinct Porsche aesthetic.
But in December 1959, F. A. Porsche completed a full design model for the replacement prototype, and in 1963 the new model, originally designated the 901, was introduced at an auto show. (The designation was changed to 911 after the company learned that in France, Peugeot had a claim on three-numeral designations of passenger cars with a zero between two digits.)
Slightly longer and narrower than the 356, more powerful, with a six-cylinder, rather than a four-cylinder, engine, the original 911 also had more legroom, more rear seat room and bigger doors for easier entrances and exits.
Mr. Porsche also modified the body of the 356, rendering the signature sloping back end and extended hood into a sleeker silhouette. It was a remarkably simple design that helped create Mr. Porsche’s reputation as a designer who prized function above all.
°°°°°°°°°°°°
“The new version was mobbed and groped when it was unveiled in September at the Frankfurt auto show,” The Associated Press reported. “Showgoers left the doors and roof smeared with fingerprints as they scrambled for a chance to sit behind the wheel.”
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche was born in Stuttgart on Dec. 11, 1935, and as a boy spent time with his father and his grandfather in the design office in Zuffenhausen. He went to school in Stuttgart and in Switzerland and studied at the Ulm School of Design.
As an engineer working for the Daimler-Benz racing team, Mr. Porsche’s grandfather, Ferdinand, had met Hitler, a racing fan then early in his ascent to power, in the mid-1920s. Mr. Porsche started his own company in the 1930s, and responded quickly when Hitler, as chancellor, directed him to create a car that ordinary Germans could afford.
Ferdinand Porsche and his son, Ferry, created the first prototype for the so-called “people’s car” — the Volkswagen. Hitler approved the design and a factory was built, but the war intervened and production of the Volkswagen was postponed; in the meantime, Porsche built tanks and airplane engines for the Nazi military, employing forced laborers on their assembly lines.
After the war, the influence of the Porsche family on German automaking became dizzyingly complicated. Volkswagen became an independent company, whose first chairman, appointed by the democratic government of Konrad Adenauer, was Anton Piëch, the husband of Louise Porsche, Ferdinand’s daughter.
Their son, Ferdinand Piëch, who began his career at Porsche, became a rival of F. A. Porsche, and in 1972 their enmity forced their parents to banish them from management and restructure Porsche into a public corporation. Mr. Piëch went on to lead Audi and is currently the chairman of Volkswagen, which owns part of Porsche.
After leaving the car company in 1972, F. A. Porsche started Porsche Design, which extended the brand to luggage, sunglasses, pens, cuff links and other items in the high-tech modernist mode. Eventually, Mr. Porsche returned to the parent company, serving as chairman from 1990 to 1993.
PS
Ferdinand Porsche, the company founder, died in 1951. Ferry Porsche died in 1998.
The long-shuttered Fisher Body Plant, in a once bustling section of Detroit, now sits quietly amid some other vintage buildings and prairie-like empty lots. Surrounded by up-and-coming redeveloped blocks and slated for redevelopment itself. Seen in 2022.
An iconoclast who tried to transform the industry. How will history judge him?
February 19, 2018 @ 12:01 am
Larry P. Vellequette
"We hadn't seen anything like you. You took $2 billion, roughly, and you've turned it into around $72 billion, and more important than that, there are many hundreds of thousands of families across many nations that are better off because of you and your team."
Adam Jonas, Morgan Stanley, to Sergio Marchionne during an FCA call with analysts in January
Brilliant, arrogant, temperamental, mercurial, opportunistic, talented, captivating, infuriating, stubborn — all apply to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne.
But one thing about Marchionne, a former tax accountant and philosophy student, stands out after nearly 15 years running the Fiat holding company and now FCA: The guy knows how to make money.
Few people in automotive history have as impressive a legacy of wealth creation as the 65-year-old Marchionne: Henry Ford, Billy Durant, Karl Benz and Kiichiro Toyoda among them. But those titans were like the industry's farmers — cultivating businesses from scratch and nurturing them into today's automaking giants.
Marchionne, in contrast, has been the fireman — running into the ruins of once-great companies, putting out the flames and rebuilding something better than before.
History will determine which was harder, a judgment that will begin in about a year, when Marchionne hands over the keys to his as-yet-unnamed successor.
Like Lee Iaccoca and men whose names are still inscribed on today's vehicles, Marchionne will leave an outsized void when he retires next year.
Yet it wasn't very long ago that few in the U.S. auto industry even knew of Marchionne.
Sergio Marchionne in 2004, the year he became CEO of Fiat
"In 2004, when you were first introduced to the auto industry, a lot of people were thinking, 'Who the hell is this guy?' Right? I was one of them, frankly," Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas told Marchionne during FCA's Jan. 25 quarterly call with analysts. "We hadn't seen anything like you. You took $2 billion, roughly, and you've turned it into around $72 billion, and more important than that, there are many hundreds of thousands of families across many nations that are better off because of you and your team."
In May 2014, as Marchionne launched a five-year business plan for the combined Fiat and Chrysler, Automotive News graded his first five years atop the formerly bankrupt Chrysler. Marchionne received a composite grade of B+, and he objected, albeit tongue-in-cheek, that the grade was too low during a press conference after the daylong rollout of the 2014-18 business plan.
FCA plans to reveal its 2018-22 business plan June 1 in Balocco, Italy, outside Fiat's historic home in Turin. The site and date have a nostalgic double meaning: Marchionne became CEO of Fiat on June 1, 2004, and Balocco was where he laid out his first five-year business plan for the company. Marchionne said last month that the 2018-22 plan would be carried out by his successor, whose identity would be revealed by the FCA board sometime after the presentation.
So how best to judge the 65-year-old Marchionne's nearly 15 years as CEO of Fiat? Is it by the wealth he's created for shareholders, as Jonas did? Or by the results Marchionne continues to produce from what has grown into FCA, Ferrari and CNH Industrial, whose combined value Bloomberg estimated at about $80 billion?
Either way, the numbers don't properly tell the why and the how of an iconoclast who may not have fundamentally transformed the auto industry as he wanted to, but at least saved a good piece of it. Marchionne declined a request for an interview for this article, so perhaps the best way to judge is to look closely at what he got right and what he got wrong, with the help of his own words.
After all, as Marchionne told graduates of the University of Toledo in May 2011: "People who see only themselves are destined to remain trapped alone within the fragile two-dimensional image of a looking glass. What a person has done during his life should not be measured by what he has achieved for himself, but rather by what he has left behind for others."
Let's start with Marchionne's bargain of the century: acquiring control of bankrupt Chrysler in 2009 for pennies on the dollar. Nearly a decade on, it's easy to forget that Marchionne agreed to take over Chrysler after virtually everyone else said no, largely because he recognized the global potential of Jeep. Jeep and Ram were the "crown jewels" of Chrysler, Marchionne said, and they needed to be shared with the rest of the world. Under different financial circumstances, that might have happened quicker. But because of Fiat and Chrysler's hobbled finances, it required time.
"What I found was ... a company that had been run by a foreign entity for a long period of time, that had taken all of its wares on the way out. In 2006-2007, it had been flipped over to financially competent — but industrially incompetent — private equity investors who had run it for a period of time and then run into a brick wall in a crisis. What we ended up looking at [when Fiat arrived] was empty cupboards in terms of technology and product. And so we started from scratch." — Marchionne at Brookings Institution, May 2014
Within months of taking control of Chrysler, Marchionne met with its dealers in Las Vegas. There, he made the first of what he called "a promise for a promise" — namely, that the automaker would commit to invest in and improve its products if dealers would agree to invest in their stores and improve their business practices with the public. Marchionne has since renewed this promise and did invest in FCA's lineup, especially early on. But the pace of product renewal has steadily slowed. The Dodge Journey, Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger, among other vehicles, still ride on platforms from the DaimlerChrysler era. Promised luxury SUVs, the Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer, have been delayed. The Dodge Grand Caravan, long scheduled to die, was re-engineered and placed back into extended sales service in 2017 because no affordable substitute had been developed to protect the value of the Chrysler Pacifica.
"The problem with us is that we like hanging onto old cars, like the Journey, you know, a successful car. Investing in the next architecture of the Journey is costly — coming up with another car that sells today." — unpublished portion of Marchionne interview with Automotive News, August 2015
Marchionne at the New York Stock Exchange after FCA's trading debut on Wall Street in October 2014. He has found a winning formula in stripping off undervalued assets and monetizing them for shareholders.
If you held shares of what was then a distressed Fiat holding company on June 1, 2004, and held onto them, your returns would have lapped the broader market several times. Marchionne found a winning formula in stripping off undervalued assets from the Italian industrial conglomerate and monetizing them for shareholders, doing so with what is now CNH Industrial ($20.25 billion) and Ferrari ($22.34 billion). Shareholders enjoyed the fruits of those actions, as they are likely to if the FCA board, as expected this month, spins off parts maker Magneti Marelli.
"One of the things that came along with being poor, which is the way we started life back in 2004 and again in 2009, is one of the things that you learn is how to do with less. And that's something that ... I have not forgotten, and I think there is nobody on the leadership team that has forgotten what it felt like at the time." — Marchionne on a quarterly conference call with analysts, January
In any cyclical industry such as automotive, the best-run companies take advantage of the good times to weather the bad. FCA hasn't reported a quarterly loss since the third quarter of 2015, but it remains the only major automaker with more debt than cash on hand. The red on FCA's balance sheet was an immediate turnoff to General Motors executives, who rebuffed Marchionne's overtures in 2015 for a potential blockbuster merger with a curt and dismissive response: "Why should we bail out FCA?" Since then, FCA has made strides in paying down its debt. The approximately $3 billion in remaining net debt reported at the end of 2017 was roughly a third of the total in mid-2015, before the spinoff of Ferrari. Marchionne said paying down debt was a priority and pledged to have the net debt wiped out by June 1.
"We're now looking like we're joining the rest of the automotive ranks. We were the only leveraged automaker in the world. We're no longer leveraged. We're now fighting with equal arms." — Marchionne, January
Marchionne gets an emotional hug from a UAW local president in Tipton, Ind., during a 2014 plant dedication.
In 2009, Marchionne inherited a mess. Daimler and later Cerberus Capital had largely failed to invest in necessary product improvements or modernize the company's industrial footprint. Morale among employees who had survived constant cost-cutting, including several rounds of layoffs, and then the bankruptcy could not have been lower. Marchionne offered the automaker's disheartened employees a path back to potential health — one that demanded long hours, hard work, humility and sacrifice. The employees accepted the challenge. They set to work fixing many of the things that had gone so wrong with Chrysler and its products — improving quality, overhauling 16 vehicles in 19 months, banning rat-gray interiors and fixing manufacturing plants. Their level of commitment and dedication to restore the company to some semblance of health continually surprised Marchionne.
"That spot [the 'Born of Fire' 2011 Super Bowl commercial] is homage to the culture of action and to our industrial roots. It speaks about hard work and results achieved through resilience and tireless efforts, about people that are not resigned to their destiny but redesign the future for themselves, day after day. It is not simply a commercial. It is the embodiment of our spirit. It portrays our company and its aspirations. It shows our passion for cars and our desire to create the best. It embodies the values upon which the American dream was built. In the end, it expresses the vision that we are making come to pass." — Marchionne when the company repaid the Chrysler government loans, May 2011
After nursing the company back to health, Marchionne saw an opportunity to return Fiat to the U.S. But rather than adding the Italian brand to Chrysler showrooms, where the additional models would have broadened the automaker's lineup at minimal expense, Marchionne sold dealers on the need to keep Fiat separate. He mandated separate European-style "studios," some of which cost dealers up to $3 million, that added overhead and botched the minicar's reintroduction to the United States.
"It was a poorly executed plan. I take full blame. I was the biggest sinner because I said [Fiat's] too small and it will just get squashed by the elephant. Everything got carved out — special treatment, special yers, special advertising agency, special this, special that, special birthday cake — and at the end of the day, it didn't need to be special." — Marchionne, January 2012
Dropping production of the Chrysler 200 helped free up capital and plant capacity that allowed FCA to expand its highly profitable Jeep and Ram lineups.
One adjective that clearly doesn't describe Marchionne is "tentative." Two years ago, industry analysts thought he was crazy to abandon the compact and midsize car segments in the U.S. to go all-in on SUV and pickup production. The risky move put FCA's lineup in a better position for where consumer tastes were heading, but it also arguably left the automaker vulnerable to another spike in fuel prices, as happened in 2008. Marchionne brushed aside the concern that history might repeat itself at the pump, reasoning that fracking had fundamentally stabilized the global oil markets for the foreseeable future. Jettisoning the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200 freed up working capital and manufacturing capacity that allowed expansion of the highly profitable Jeep and Ram lineups, which are projected to drive record financial returns for FCA this year.
"There has been, in our view, a permanent shift towards [utility vehicles] and pickup trucks, and we have seen, certainly in terms of our ability to meet market demand, some severe restriction in terms of the dexterity of our manufacturing system to accomplish that end. And so, one of the things that we have decided to do is to effectively defocus from a manufacturing standpoint in the U.S. [on] the passenger car market." — Marchionne, January 2016
In 2011, Volkswagen Group scion Ferdinand Piech wanted Alfa Romeo in the worst way. At the time, the Fiat holding company had made years of promises about restoring the Italian brand to its former glory but hadn't spent much on the project and had little to show as a result.
Piech and Volkswagen would have paid top dollar for Alfa Romeo. Instead, Marchionne publicly feuded with Piech and then-VW CEO Martin Winterkorn, even offering an extra $1,000 discount for VW owners who switched to an FCA vehicle. Marchionne refused to sell, choosing instead to sink $6 billion in cash from his highly leveraged automaker into a wildly optimistic resurrection plan in 2014. When the resulting vehicles finally launched, they were late and had quality problems. Alfa Romeo has yet to turn a profit.
"As long as I am CEO of Chrysler and Fiat, Mr. Piech will never have Alfa Romeo." — Marchionne, February 2011
Marchionne has no shortage of people who will disagree with him, but most colleagues, competitors and acquaintances respect his intellect. He is unapologetically emotional — as in 2014, when he choked up reading aloud from a scholarship application from the daughter of an FCA line worker in Detroit. He is also unabashed about questioning the foundations of the auto industry and capitalism itself. His 2015 analysis of the auto industry's wasteful spending habits, "Confessions of a Capital Junkie," was roundly applauded by analysts for its thoroughness and drew quiet praise from competitors, even if they didn't act on it.
Marchionne also has been warning for years that growing income disparity is a threat to capitalism that must be addressed, even as he takes home millions in pay and bonuses each year.
"We all need to understand that there can never be rational markets, growth and economic well-being if a large part of our society has nothing to bargain with other than their own lives. ... Sometimes I wonder whether we have stiffened our mental models even in the face of clear market threats because we feel comfortable in our relative well-being and uncomfortable in dealing close up with the have-nots." — Marchionne to investors, May 2014
Marchionne greets then-President Barack Obama in 2011 at FCA?s plant in Toledo, Ohio.
Marchionne is famous for speaking his mind, sometimes to his detriment.
There was the time, in 2011, when he complained about the government charging FCA on its bailout loans, before apologizing the next day. He called the former Jeep Commander "unfit for human consumption" while some of them remained on dealers' lots.
When the EPA, in the waning days of the Obama administration, alleged that FCA had undeclared emissions software on its EcoDiesel Ram 1500s and Jeep Grand Cherokees, Marchionne angrily protested, His vociferous denials likely factored into delayed certification of the 2017 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel and difficulty winning approval for other vehicles with that engine.
There was also an incident at the 2012 Paris auto show, in which Marchionne appeared to challenge VW's Winterkorn to a fight. The two men never came to blows, at least in public.
"If Volkswagen, through its chief executive, thinks that it needs to do something, tell them to show up tomorrow morning at 7 o'clock at our stand." — Marchionne, September 2012
Marchionne embraces UAW President Dennis Williams before 2015 contract negotiations between FCA and the union.
American Motors, Renault and Chrysler talked about it. Daimler Chrysler was supposed to try, but it botched the attempt and bagged the effort. And Cerberus? It was too busy selling art off the walls to make payroll.
But Fiat and Marchionne have accomplished what those other companies could not: taking Jeep global. Not only have the SUV brand's sales more than doubled under Fiat, but Jeeps are now built and sold in South America, Europe and Asia, unlocking the potential value of one of the world's most recognized automotive brands.
"[Jeep], to me, is the biggest insurance policy I have, because that brand, that was the best part of Chrysler by a long, long stretch. ... I think we had a lot of safety in saying we can afford to screw up elsewhere because Jeep will just carry the load." — unpublished portion of Marchionne interview, August 2015
In 2015, Marchionne talked as if a tie-up with GM, Volkswagen or some other company was unavoidable. But when nobody else went along with the idea, he was forced to fix up his own house, recasting his lineup into SUVs and pickups in a bid to improve the balance sheet, and the grandiose talk of inevitable mergers faded away.
"The numbers here are so large that the logic of the deal is irrefutable. If I stand up and I tell you ... that you can make X billion more by being together, I guarantee you that I can carry half the market if I say it." — unpublished portion of Marchionne interview, August 2015
This year, a mural has appeared on the back wall of the Rhode Opera House in Kenosha. I haven't been able to find any real information about who created the mural or why. I can guess it is to celebrate Kenosha's automotive history at the end of that history.
I think the wall where this mural is, would have backed up to the Simon's Mattress Factory building that became the Nash/AMC/Chrysler lakefront plant. That plant was closed in 1988 and demoed in 1989.
www.kenoshanews.com/news/downtown_mural_pays_homage_to_ke...
Rapid prototyped bangle forms generated using automake software, moslty SLS, one metalised with copper and silver
Fiz para a formatura da minha melhor amiga! Tem que caprichar né?
Usei produtos da Avon e Natura! Só faltou aí o batom Russian Red da MAC que passei depois e esqueci de tirar foto.
The Marathon motor car was manufactured here 1914-1918 by Southern Motor Works (later called Marathon). Four models, all touring cars, were powered by engines of 4 cylinders, 30/35 hp & 6's of 50 hp, with wheelbases from 9'8" to 12'5". The plant closed operations in 1914 due to financial difficulties but continued a parts & service business until 1918.
Then as now it was common for auto manufacturers to outsource some of their components, concentrating on assembly and marketing, and perhaps manufacture of a few major systems. Southern Engine took a different approach however, and rather audaciously decided to engineer and build every single part of its car in-house. The company was fortunate to possess an exceptionally talented young engineer, William Henry Collier, who accepted the challenge, and by 1906 had a prototype ready for inspection. It was not ready for much else, though. The company's newsletter daily remarked that the car "should move, but don't".
Rapid progress was made after that, though, and small production runs were achieved in 1907 and 1908. Outside investors were invited in the latter year, and 1909 saw a two-model lineup, roadster and touring car, powered by 35 HP 4-cylinder engines. Both were open bodies (tops were optional) and sold for about $1500. Sales volume reached about 400 units, a respectable figure at the time, especially considering the firm was making virtually all the parts itself.
The vehicles had been marketed as Southerns at first, but another firm was using that name. A decision was made to rebadge the automaking operation and spin it off as a separate company at the same time. In 1910, Marathon Motor Works was created, named out of the enthusiasm for things Greek which had grown out of the 1904 Olympics. Concurrently, the company moved its operations to a larger facility in Nashville, Tennessee, whose finance and transport infrastructure could better support a growing company.
And grow it did. Marathon was soon on a genuine roll, even by the exuberant standards of the exploding auto industry. The cars acquired a good reputation for quality and durability, probably helped by the fact that the factory had total control of its parts, engineering and manufacturing. New models and national advertising followed, and production soared to 10,000 units in 1912. Dealers were signed up literally on every continent and demand considerably exceeded supply.
As with so many of the early auto firms, though, management and finance did not keep up with engineering. It was said [by whom?] that Collier was allowed to make fewer and fewer decisions, having to defer instead to a board of directors that often changed and may have been involved in financial improprieties. Critical personnel began to leave and suppliers began to complain of non-payment. The company fell as fast as it had risen and 1914 was its last year. The tooling was bought by some former staffers with backing from an Indianapolis group. The Herff-Brooks Corporation briefly continued to produce the cars in that city.
The Marathon is remembered locally as being the only brand of car ever actually built in Nashville. (The present-day Nissan and GM facilities in the area are outside the city.) The former Marathon plant still exists and is currently home to several artistic businesses.
Marathon cars are collectible today like other Brass Era cars, although only nine are known to have survived. Four of these are currently in the possession of the owners of the former Marathon Building.
Recent reports have shown that the car which is in the best condition is in Argentina. This unique car is in perfect running condition and it is owned by an Argentinian collector who has worked for two years in order to restore it. This collector has managed to maintain all its original parts as if it were just released for sale.
In 2008, a mystery novel called The Marathon Murders was published by Nashville author Chester Campbell. Although the murder itself is fictional, the book uses the documented disagreements and possible dishonesty among the board and executives to provide a plausible motive.
The Marathon Motor Works building currently houses an antique store called Antique Archaeology (the business at the center of the television series American Pickers).
The building currently also houses a direct marketing firm, OLN, which specialized in direct marketing for Fortune 500 clients.
Original cost of the car was $3,495 US
LaSalle was introduced in 1927. They were the first automake to have a separate department of styling called Art & Color
With European influenced styling they set a 10 year sales record their first year
The Italians are coming! The Italians are coming! :-D
Italian automaking was well represented by this Alfa Romeo Spider at the Montclair Fourth of July parade.
A Crafts Council touring exhibition at Oriel Myrddin gallery 25 February - 7 April 2012
Matrix Bracelet 2 - 2009
Dyed Nylon
Matrix Bracelet 2 has been created using rapid prototyping technology from an Automake design.
www,orielmyrddingallery.co.uk
Básic 💖 ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ #makeglam #makeup #maquiagemx #maquiagembrasil #wakeupandmakeup #universodamaquiagem #maquiagemfortaleza #makeuptutorial #maquiagem_insta #weddingmakeup #beuatymakeup #automake #videomakeup #maquiagem #maquiadora #maquiagemadomicilio #rubyrose #redmakeup #goldenhour #morphe #anastasiabeverlyhills #mood #halloween #halloweenmakeup #makeglam #pinkmakeup #maquiagemx #maquiagembrasil ##universodamaquiagem #maquiagemfortaleza #makeuptutorial #maquiagem_insta ##beuatymakeup #automake #videomakeup #topmaquiagem #topmaquiagembrasil
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In an early example of the kind of pan-European automaking that Volkswagen does so much of today, Carrozzeria Ghia of Italy designed bodywork to put upon VW's chassis, which was then fabricated by Karmann GmbH in Germany.
Rapid prototyped selection of elyptical forms generated using automake software, largest approx. 250x250x150mm
Transformação de hoje 💖 ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ #makeglam #makeup #maquiagemx #maquiagembrasil #wakeupandmakeup #universodamaquiagem #maquiagemfortaleza #makeuptutorial #maquiagem_insta #weddingmakeup #beuatymakeup #automake #videomakeup #maquiagem #maquiadora #maquiagemadomicilio #rubyrose #redmakeup #goldenhour #morphe #anastasiabeverlyhills #mood #halloween #halloweenmakeup #makeglam #pinkmakeup #maquiagemx #maquiagembrasil ##universodamaquiagem #maquiagemfortaleza #makeuptutorial #maquiagem_insta ##beuatymakeup #automake #videomakeup #topmaquiagem #topmaquiagembrasil
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