16 May 2007
Imperial
Jerry Falwell may not jump out at you in the context of the divestiture of the hulk of the Chrysler Corporation, but I like to think of him driving on the four-lane to heaven on of those old Imperials with the push-button gearshifts and the monster hemi V-eight engine.
It is not that far a leap, after all. The Reverend Falwell's father was a bootlegger for a while, and the great tradition of the American South includes Baptist Churches, fast cars and white lightning.
It is a tradition that goes back to Shay's Rebellion against the new government, and in the same territory down in the valley in Lynchburg. The Reverend will be lying in state in the massive basketball-arena sized church he founded on Thomas Road.
It is part cathedral and part television studio, and had a congregation of almost 20,000 at its height. The Reverend was an icon of the new militant ministry, at the center of a web of educational institutions he founded, and a media empire that orchestrated.
Like the Chrysler Motor Company, the Reverend was American to his very core. His legacy of the Moral Majority was front and center in the Republican presidential debate last night. Yet his grandfather was an atheist, or what he would have called a “free thinker” back in the day. He was a complete American, with all the inherent contradictions. In addition to his family connection untaxed private distillery industry, and rebellion against the central government, he was a master at reinvention and adaptation.
That is where Chrysler failed. They could not reinvent themselves fast enough to get out from under the back-office burdens of the past. The Daimler-Benz management team saw what was very good about the company. Agility was one thing, and their creativity was unmatched.
Look at what they did in the last decade: the Viper, the Sebring convertible, and the ubiquitous retro PT Cruiser. My son is driving my Sebring now, and it has been a wonderful car with over a hundred thousand stylish miles on the odometer.
What they could not get out from under was the legacy of a generous pension and health-care system for the people that made the cars. In the end, it was not the cars that sank Chrysler, but the weight of its social contract with the workers, and the competition with the global workforce.
It is curious that a German company had to let them go because of the American social contract, but I have to suspend disbelief in a lot of things these days. After all, I am driving a German car and actually happy about it. For years I held out for Detroit products, a captive of my past as a Detroit kid who grew up in a car family.
They say the Reverend was a great guy, and kind to a fault, at least in person. He believed in what he was doing, and if he had to speak his mind, that is just the way it was. That is what the Germans said when they handed over the keys to the Chrysler to the Secretive Cerebus Capital Management Group today in Stuttgart.
They are a rapacious group of private financiers who have made a fortune in taking over troubled dinosaurs and stripping them down to make them efficient. We will be seeing a lot of sparks at Chrysler as the old sheet metal is cut away. I don't know if the new management team understands much about cars. That is not important to what they do.
I know that the health care program and retirees are in for a bumpy ride and they ought to be fastening their seatbelts.
It would be time to look to the comfort of the Good Book, if that would help, or tune into a good Gospel Show on their flat-screen televisions. It would be just the medicine that Reverend Falwell would prescribe, if he could, but his time is past.
I hope that he has a comfortable ride, wherever he is going.
Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com