I have been carefully monitoring the news from NASCAR, the Wall Street
Journal and Automotive News lately and what I am reading does not portend
well for Mopar in '09.

Cerberus is attempting to buy the remaining shares of Chrysler held by
Daimler...

GM and Chrysler are in talks about a possible merger/joint-venture...

Chrysler LLC is a privately held company and thus does not publish it's
financials but it is rumored to be bleeding cash...

The domestic auto market is in the tank...

What the high fuel prices couldn't do, the credit crunch appears to be
doing...

GEM is reportedly close to a deal to run the Toyota banner next year...

Dodge has announced they are withdrawing from the NCTS in '09...

There is a rumor that PEI and DEI are in merger talks...

All of these things (and much more) lead me to believe that when the green
flag falls at Daytona next year, it will be without a Dodge in the lineup.

I am not a pessimist by any means, but all of the stars are aligning in such
a way that the only conclusion I can reach is that Dodge will no longer be
with us in '09... at least on the track, and perhaps on the road.

After all the trials and tribulations of Walter P's company over the years,
it will be a sad day indeed if my prediction is correct.

Pig and I will have to find a tavern located between Indy and StL so that we
can cry in our beer together.....
:^(
Whaddya all think?

Mike

Well, unless GM decides to step in and replace all the NASCAR Dodges with
Saturns

I could see those guys driving nominal Auras. I'd be okay with that.

--pig


On 10/17/08 21:19, in article ZeWdnavde-nytmTVnZ2dnUVZ_jWdnZ2d (AT) posted (DOT) yhti,
"Mike Simmons" <mikesim (AT) yhti (DOT) net> wrote:

On Oct 18, 8:03 am, Megan Zurawicz <list... (AT) sbcglobal (DOT) net> wrote:
saturn does make some nice cars now, but they havn't created their own
saturn car for quite some time, most saturns today are re-badged opels
from europe

Well, it depends on point of view...or vue, if we're talking Saturns. GM
classes basic models as platforms (Lambda, Theta, etc) and while there are
Opel versions of four of the five models, they aren't necessarily "re-badged
Opels"---there are differences, and the design traffic goes both directions
multi-continentally among varied GM marques. But Opel is often the most
visible version, yes.

On the other hand, Saturns are what puts food on my table, so I'd still be
okay with them running on the track.

--pig


On 10/18/08 14:27, in article
276c23e4-c550-423c-9d11-094f26f06b09...oglegroups.com, "Fish"
<davester_349 (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote:

On Oct 18, 8:31 pm, Megan Zurawicz <list... (AT) sbcglobal (DOT) net> wrote:
you work for saturn? that was probably my favorite car when i was
younger, my dad had a 1991 saturn that took us everywhere we ever
needed to be. it ran great to just over 300k km and it got tboned by a
school bus who ran a stop sign. amazing how my dad survived that
crash in a small car like that with no airbags only ended up with a
few cracked teeth from hitting the steering wheel.

but yes i know that most gm vehicles are all built on platforms shared
around the world. heck the car i drive now an olds alero is just a
grand am with different sheet metal, but the saturns today don't even
really have different sheet metal, the saturn sky is nearly identical
to an opel speedster