Well I am hearing serious doubts about the sprinter line staying with Chrysler at all. Even with the 20% ownership left, there seems to be a move to shore up FL with their version of the van and sell more through the M-B dealer system because of the success of the ML line, or this is what I have been told. Nothing is final until it happens but IMHO it would be rather dumb to sell a re-branded vehicle outside of the company anyway because of warrantee issues and other factors involved in this day and age. Maybe it would be a good thing that Chrysler gets out of the van market completely and focus on products that already some appeal, like their trucks.
I have a feeling that we will see some new products come out of the deal but truthfully they need to get rid of the idea that people remember the 60's and help them forget the 70's. The white hat days are long gone and retro cars made from a sedan platform really is discouraging. I still own many Chrysler products but there is a huge difference between the retro-cr*p cars that they have been pushing (or at least around here) and the real deal I have sitting in storage.
What I hope will happen - may not happen, if they really are serious about resuscitating the company, bring the concept to production down to a reasonable level as they were trying to do before the hostile take over in ’98. That went out the door when Daimler got rid of the 30% of the engineers working at the tech center.
The other thing that I wish they would realize is that a majority of their customers are not employees and tell the dealers stop advertising these great deals on the cars that the public can’t get. If the employees can’t comprehend that they get a discount, they don’t deserve to work there in the first place.
