1957 Ferrari Testa Rossa or Chrysler's Viper Business. Your Choice. $10 Million
The Detroit Bureau reports today that in a bankruptcy court document, CEO Robert Nardelli stated that Chrysler LLC offered for sale the Detroit Viper factory (and presumably the tooling and intellectual property to go along with it) for a mere $10 million dollars. The factory has been up for sale since this past August, but sadly there was “no purchaser interest.” 2008 Dodge Viper sales were 1,172, up 169 percent over the prior year. According to another bankruptcy filing, the operation was previously been slightly profitable, with a net $16 million in 2008 before taxes, interest, depreciation, and amortization. With those kinds of numbers a buyer would need to spend several times the purchase price just to keep the assembly line humming. We all know how challenging it is these days for a sports car manufacturer to stay solvent, SUVs or not.
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But lw, there are....what, maybe 200 potential "Viper" customers in the world (based on last year's generous Chryco Viper sales figures)? Who wouldn't rather have or could afford something else better, but could and would still fork out for a Viper, made by someone else? Not worth the effort, I suspect. Chrysler never received even a single offer for the Viper operations (per court filings) for one clear and obvious reason - they're effectively worthless. http://rumors.automobilemag.com/6517054/news/chrysler-never-received-offer-for-viper-operations/index.html
Fallout, Read the rest of the article - they did in fact receive an offer of $5 million
Yes, but they (DMW) couldn't prove they actually HAD $5.5 million (to the court's and Chrysler's satisfaction). My neighbor's 4 year old could offer $10 million for Viper by the same logic.....but neither would be considered a "real" offer.
Yeah, the Detroits News reported that the only offer fell through.