And it’s getting kind of weird. He’s been wanting to merge Fiat-Chrysler with someone, anyone, for a while now, and now people are just straight-up saying “NO” before he even formally asks. Damn, Sergio.
This is starting to look like 8th grade prom, and Sergio’s the guy who no one wants to dance with. At this point, both Toyota and Ford are using Very Serious Business Language to say that they’re basically skeeved out, and also No Thank You. Here’s Toyota, via the Detroit News:
Toyota Motor Corp. North America CEO Jim Lentz on Thursday said the Japanese automaker has not been contacted by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV about potential mergers, and is not interested in consolidation with other automakers.
“It’s something we would not be interested in,” Lentz told reporters in a roundtable ahead of a groundbreaking at the Toyota Technical Center. “At 10 million (vehicles) we have enough scale right now to do what we need to do. There really would be no advantage for us.”
And Ford:
We’re not a suitor for FCA,” [Ford CFO Bob Shanks] said at a recent roundtable discussion with investors. “We don’t see that type of opportunity as one that applies to us.”
Shanks said, to his knowledge, Marchionne hasn’t directly reached out to Ford about a deal.
“We have a lot of experience with mergers …We’re not babes in the woods,” he said. “Based on that experience, for us that doesn’t seem to be where we’d want to go. We want to have a more forward-looking perspective in terms of what’s happening in the industry … It doesn’t seem to be that it would be doubling down on the past.”
Damn, Shanks that’s savage. Let’s see it one more time:
We want to have a more forward-looking perspective in terms of what’s happening in the industry … It doesn’t seem to be that it would be doubling down on the past.
Ice. Cold.
Shanks here is referring to the industry’s past strategy for about 100 years or so of just merging and consolidating and merging and consolidating and buying up every brand that came along.
As Pontiac, Eagle, Hummer, Saab, Hudson, Kaiser, Oldsmobile, AMC, Mercury, and Rambler can all attest, this is not always the best idea. And Ford, Toyota, and GM finally realize it.
The end result is no one wants to buy Fiat-Chrysler. And you know what? That’s okay. Really, it is. We’re a fan of competition, everywhere, and competition is great.
Sergio, we’ve already given you a bunch of sad songs to help with rejection. But maybe it’s time for you to celebrate the strong, independent carmaker you lead?
Here’s another song, just for you:
We like you just as you are, Fiat-Chrysler. Really. Never change, because you don’t need a bigger buyer just to be as great as you want to be.
Photo credit: Getty Images
Contact the author at ballaban@jalopnik.com.
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