FIAT/Chrysler CEO Lays Out Big Plans

Sergio Marchionne envisions a company reinvigorated through swapping technology, engineering and vehicles with Fiat, of which he is also CEO and which took over managing Chrysler last year.

The LA Times has a piece out today titled "Reporting from Detroit - Can Chrysler be saved?"- and has an interesting interview with the Chrysler and FIAT CEO-

If you ask the steadily confident Sergio Marchionne, the answer is yes. After all, he did something like it before, bringing Italian carmaker Fiat back from financial disaster.

Now the Fiat chief executive, who also heads Chrysler, needs to convince North American consumers that the brand is here to stay and that it makes cars and trucks they want to buy.

"We aren't going to bank the future of this house on one truck or one vehicle. You can't. We tried that before, and one car won't save the house," he said.

Chrysler-badged Lancia Delta

Marchionne outlined a vision of a Chrysler reinvigorated through swapping technology, engineering and vehicles with Fiat. He described his work as a "tedious rebuilding of a mosaic" of customer service, the market's perception of the quality of Chrysler vehicles and the way the brands are marketed.

One cheerleader is U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

"I consider Sergio Marchionne as the Lee Iacocca of his generation," LaHood said in an interview with The Times on Monday, referring to the former Chrysler CEO who helped resurrect the company in the early 1980s.

More at the LA Times -here-