NEW YORK — Chrysler was once a giant in the US auto industry – one of the Big Three, sharing a name with one of the world’s tallest buildings and with factories and dealerships spread across America.
“Once” is the key word. The company has fallen dismally far. Today the once-proud brand is a shell of its former self, an after-thought on life support, whose very future could be in doubt.
After going through not one but a string of three purchases by foreign-based automakers over the last 25 years, a bankruptcy and the second federal bailout in its history, the brand has only one car still rolling off an assembly line with the Chrysler badge on it. And it’s a minivan. Built in Canada.
Yes, Chrysler invented the minivan, but that was decades ago. A brilliant concept of design and packaging, the idea has long since been rejected by …