Word: chrysler
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Iacocca professed no future plans other than to take a vacation later this month, and to have his desk at Ford cleaned out in time for his formal departure on Oct. 15. Auto executives traded rumors all week that Iacocca had been tapped for a top job at Chrysler Corp., a story Chrysler directors denied. Other reports had him negotiating with major corporations outside the auto industry...
...Chrysler Corp. has been defending its new Plymouth Horizon and Dodge Omni subcompacts against charges last month by the Consumers Union testing group that the cars careened wildly during some extreme road tests. Now the company has received some strong support from Washington. After conducting the same road tests as did Consumers Union on the two front-wheel-drive cars, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported the same results-but ruled that the cars are every bit as safe as Chrysler contends. NHTSA argued that the tests are, in effect, irrelevant to driving situations that motorists encounter...
...speed, and the steering wheel is yanked sharply to one side, then released and allowed to swing free while the driver keeps his foot on the gas, the wheel oscillates back and forth. This characteristic was not a "defect" but was "undesirable," said the Canadian engineers, and they feel Chrysler should correct it. Added Peter Keith, head of the ministry's advanced-engineering department: "While this oscillating is significant to engineers, there is no way that we could prove it related to the safety of the cars...
...argument goes now to the Government's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which was surprised to get the Consumers Union findings; it had received no previous complaints about the Omni-Horizon. Deputy Administrator Howard Dugoff says NHTSA "cannot yet explain" how Consumers Union and Chrysler got such diametrically opposed results on the critical second test. Determining whether the first let-go-of-the-wheel test has any real relation to the auto's performance, says Dugoff, "will be tough-we will have to do some rather extensive analysis." Should Omni-Horizon fail NHTSA tests, the agency could order...
...publicity hits Chrysler at a time when it is peculiarly vulnerable. The company lost $120 million in this year's first quarter, and expects at best to break even for the rest of the year. Its share of the market for U.S.-made cars is down to about 13%, vs. a recent high of 16.2% in 1974. It has been counting on the Omni-Horizon to increase its market share, haul it into the black and help persuade investors and lenders to put up the $7.5 billion that it must spend over the next five years to bring...