DSkippy

I think stating from the beginning "We are not going to sell to this particular market" is myopic from a marketing standpoint. What they should do is state in the affirmative "We are initially going to focus on this market and we're currently working the numbers on markets X,Y and Z".

No one can claim to be Nostradomus, and make clairvoyant statements excluding a particulate market. This deflates buzz in that market and kills any potential to compete there in the future. Tease. Work the break even point in a particular market. If you hit your numbers in your primary market, create some mechanism to take orders with the widely public and conspicuous statement that "If we receive this threshold of orders in Market X, we will make good on those orders". A deposit with voucher through a dealer to a general interest bearing fund would be made (this would reduce reluctance) available to secure legally binding intents to purchase thus allowing a relatively risk free approach to allow the market to announce it's willingness to buy in sufficient numbers to make it worth the mfgr's time and money to sell in that market.

If they don't do it this way now somewhere, they should consider it, who know's Germans may have a high hard one for this car. Cerberus could see if the market would bear it w/ little risk w/ this approach AND wouldn't that be sweet. American (pseudo because of Canadian production) Chrslers outselling Daimler in Germany. Delicious irony.

RLSH700

Okay, I'm glad we see eye-to-eye on the economies of scale stand point and that your not against selling it do to fears of it hurting our supply of Challengers. I just wanted to be sure about that.

Now for your questions and points, I do not have all the insider information and cannot do a full blown marketing research job on the Australian market. Heck, I barely have enough time in the day to respond to this. Why should we first test it over here? Who's to say that if it flops over here that it won't be successful over there or vice versa? Unlike Chrysler's management, I do not believe in using General McClellan strategies (have the capability to win and pull back everytime because they can't handle the thought of making a mistake and the price that goes along with it). I think Chrysler needs to realize what they have and use it for a change because years of holding back has limited their success and its starting to eat away at them.

If I had things my way from the beginning, I would produce about 150K units for the 2008 model and would have started selling it last month. Now I would keep 100K units dedicated to the North American market (Canada, U.S., and Mexico) and divided them according to what the research I had on what the likely size of the audience might be. I would then sell the other 50K units internationally. Now just because I would sell them internationally, does not mean they will all be the same. I would sell the international models (especially ones sold in Europe and possibly Canada) with diesels and AWD systems for options for those who do not care as much about the gas engines and the RWD only heritage as we do over here. People in Europe will be more likely to want to buy it if it has the fuel efficiency they desire along with the looks. Also, the international packaging would probably not be quite as luxury orientated as it is over here. For countries like Australia, I would not make leather standard on any model (except the SRT models perhaps) and leave out other luxuries that they are less likely to care about over pricing. This would help to make it more affordable and better fit the demongraphics.

Having this set up would provide Chrysler with a chance to test these new markets to see if they will be popular or not. It is better to actually test it in those countries than to go purely off of demographics. Not every country will have equal sales by any extent of the imagination, that is why I planned the bulk to be sold in this area.

Also another problem with waiting a year is they will be selling a product that has already been out on the