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The answer to your question, "Why buy a car from Chrysler?"

Fiat, Chrysler's new partner-in-waiting.

The key to re-making the U.S. auto industry for the green economy is leveraging into the U.S. market the kinds of stylish, affordable, fuel-efficient cars that Europeans have been enjoying for years.

One look at Fiat's Web site for the United Kingdom -- at fiat.co.uk -- should have car lovers and sustainability advocates alike licking their lips at the prospect of seeing these beautiful cars -- many of which have standard gasoline engines that get COMBINED city / highway mpg ratings of 50, 60, and more -- on the streets of American cities.

The fact that these gasoline-powered cars have been readily available in Europe, while the U.S. congratulates itself for marketing hybrids that peg barely above 40 mpg shows just how UNserious the American car industry has been about green cars.

Surely, there is no better proof of this than Chrysler's own corporate Web site -- at chryslerllc.com/en/innovation/mpg -- in which Chrysler cites its line-up of "great mpg" cars as proof of its "innovation."

Says Chrysler: "We are proud to offer you 13 vehicles with 24 highway MPG or better."

Bring on the Fiats.

"screw the pooch" was made a popular term in the Tom Wolfe book, "The Right Stuff". It euphemistically connotes a really big mess-up, usually meaning that you "augured" your plane, or space capsule, into the ground, often with yourself still on board.

No.6.

The engineers who made the Yugo were not FIAT engineers. FIAT licenced the design to Yugo and provided some technical expertise and design help.

The FIAT version of the vehicle was very popular, quite robust for a small car and pretty reliable. Remember, we are talking the 1970's here.

FIAT wouldn't be my first choice for great design, I thnk Peugeot does a better job and of course Alfa Romeo.

Dan Mosenkis, yes, "Changing My Name to Chrysler" is originally a Tom Paxton tune (along with "All We Need Now is One Million Lawyers!")

Morris Bagnall, If I recall from the 70's, Alfa Romeos actually are Fiats with the sports body on top.

Personally, I'd love to see Citroen sell cars here again as well as other high-mileage low-priced European cars.

@Mark - indeed. And what was that stuff about the return of the muscle car era? Not a chance.

What in the world does "screw the pooch" mean?
Your guest used that phrase and I am sure it is a negative term but WHAT does it mean? where does it come from. I googled it, no help.

Chrysler makes (or should I say made) a shoddy product. Someone has to say it. My Honda Civic has 139,000 relatively trouble-free miles on it. Unlike the President, I can't "afford" to support Chrysler.

Guys -- the holdouts bought the debt at huge discounts and their claims are for face value.

Is there any truth to the story that the creditors who held out are hedged by credit default swaps and will gain from those payouts. and that these CDS's might be paid by AIG which means we taxpayors will pay even more for the bankruptcy

A small point, but it's comical to hear all these defenders of the Firebird....GTO, Bonneville, OK, but the Firebird was always just a Camaro with a crappy decal and fake spoiler.

Who was that fool? Pontiac hasn't made the Firebird for years. Chevy only just now started making the Camaro again (Firebird = Camaro w/ Pontiac badges).

I think it's sad that the idea of sharing a company with the workers when the company is doing well is out of the question, but when the company amounts to a pile of debt, they are happy to "share the wealth". What a ripoff for the worker.

Chrysler mating with another company is not so strange, they have been using Mitsubishi motors and other running gear since the 1970's.
What worries me is the mating with Fiat. Does anyone remember the Yugo? Most ill-designed jalopy to hit the US possibly ever. The Yugo was a Fiat built in the former Yugoslavia.
I pray that Fiat engineers of the past have been replaced by real ones!

Finally a European manufacturer is getting a foothold in the US market again.
Now we will see innovation and exciting new designs as well as more efficient engines.

Hopefully, we will see new working practices that are more flexible and responsive to the market demands.

Now somebody bring in Alfa Romeo!

Rahm Emmanuel said "Never allow a crisis to go to waste.”

How could Chrysler and labor act on this sentiment?

Wasn't "Arlo Guthrie's song about Chrysler" written by Tom Paxton?

I gave up on American Auto, including UAW, after it turned its back on getting American health care to stop increasing rates at 10% a year or more -- simply because it was legal.

Once the world's biggest and most powerful union, along with the industry they serve, simply gives up on its number one problem, then what other purpose is there really left to serve?

These guys got their bailout. It's called those millions of SUVs "sold" under the Bush/Greenspan Credit Bonanza.

What will it take before labor focuses on fixing health care and aligning with overseas labor toward better worker and environmental rights? At least then the worst case scenario is, they went down fighting the good fight.

i think the real problem is that auto is a dieing industry. now that we've passed the point of peak oil driving will become more and more something only rich people do. they can't even build new refineries. why? because like big auto it has no future and is a bad investment.