2 comments about Dodge Daytona and Chrysler Laser the Definitive History 1984-1993.

1. Greg McCausey has to be complimented on being the first person in many years to recognize the value of one of the famous extended Chrysler K-cars, and for being able to sell his idea for a book on them to a serious publisher. With the ignorant blogging and mass-market magazine rabble constantly slamming the ol' EEKs with cheap shots, Greg's recognition of the Daytona and lack of sarcasm are refreshingly fresh.
   
   At the time, the Daytona was quite a vehicle -- even the base model got a relatively torquey (compared with similarly sized Japanese and American cars) 2.2 liter engine; the seats were plush and comfortable, the ride smooth, the cornering capable; and the turbocharged engines impressive, from the original Turbo I (sans intercooler) right up to the 224-hp Turbo III and variable-nozzle, no-waiting-for-power Turbo IV. To his credit, McCausey not only covers all these options, but discusses them realistically, including both strengths and weaknesses. In many car books, only the top engine option gets real coverage, and any deficiencies are smoothed over; but not here.
   
   The book is fairly long, at 179 pages, with an incredible number of details, most (but by no means all) of which came from various web sites including allpar, the Shelby Dodge site, and the writer's own moparautos.com. Much of that is taken up by tables of options, clearly moved into a word processor straight from the Web; this book has a number of hallmarks of the self publisher, and appears to have been reproduced via laser printer. The color photography is reproduced well, but the black and white photography suffers from "laser printer syndrome" and some of the scans have clear JPEG artifacts; on the other hand, other photos are quite clear and well reproduced. Many, if not most, of the photos were taken at auto shows, so the average photo is moderately cluttered and has the hood up; and quite a few cars have "not quite stock" items, such as different wheels, paint variations, etc. Some of the cars didn't have the interior cleaned before shots were snapped, and aftermarket stereos were not uncommon. If the reader looks at the photography as covering decades-old daily drivers, these shortcomings are not an issue, but those seeking a restoration guide might want to exercise caution.
   
   (other details are at the full version of this review over on allpar.com)
   
   The book integrated existing sources (and possibly new information) to make an easy to read history of cars that were critically acclaimed and fairly innovative when they first hit the road, and have been forgotten by most people (its owners excepted). Yes, there are a few mistakes and some of the photos are what you'd expect from a gifted amateur at a car show, and yes, you can find a lot of this information on the Web. However, the Daytona/Laser book is the best paper-based reference we're ever likely to see on any Chrysler cars of this era; it's well written, in an engaging style, and McCausey pulled in numerous sources to have a fairly well arranged, well documented compilation. It's worth a buy, and it's also a terrific gift for your Daytona-owning friends.



2. As a collector of 1980's Shelby vehicles this book interested me for a number of reasons. I expected to find a wealth of stats and some photos, including some that pertained to the Shelby Daytonas. I was very pleased to find the book goes far beyond that.
   
   When they say definitive history, they mean it. This book tells the story of the G body cars from many angles including original corporate positioning/thinking, how the various models fit into the broader marketplace, what the automotive press was covering at the time, and quotes from former employees/designers. You can actually read this book cover to cover and learn a good deal about not just Daytonas, but about the people and mindset of both Chrysler and Detroit in the late 1980's and early 1990's.
   
   The book includes a great amount of detail on the year-by-year changes to the Daytona and Laser. I also liked the tables with production counts of not just models but individual colors and option packages. While most of this is available on the Internet (including the author's website), the ability to have it in book form makes it easier to use as a reference and frankly lends credibility to the stats.
   
   The only fault I can find with the book, and the reason for four stars instead of five, is the lack of authentic images. Most of the photos in the book are exactly what you see on the cover.. cars at swap meets or other shows.. with their hoods up and usually some after-market baubles added. I would have liked to have seen a greater number of images from the original marketing materials, press handouts, magazine spreads, and so on. There are a few (i.e. pages 14, 20, 36, 51, 60) but they are low-resolution scans and mostly black & white. I understand that the author was likely constrained to using mainly his own photos due to licensing or copyright issues.. however in future printings perhaps Chrysler would be so kind as to offer up images from their archive to be used without royalties in the book.
   
   I think the author deserves a large amount of credit for capturing this information on an oft-overlooked segment of automotive history. With fuel prices as high as they are today, younger collectors may look at the gas-guzzling V8's of the 1970's and decide instead to move into the relatively fuel-efficient, yet high-performance turbo-4's of the 1980's. This book helps place these cars in context and demonstrates how they were the forerunners to the modern high-performance/high-mpg cars in showrooms today.
   
   In summary, this is a solid effort and a book worth purchasing if you have an interest in late 1980's performance cars or 1980's/1990's Detroit in general.

2 comments about Chrysler: Full-Size Trucks 1967-88 (Chilton's Total Car Care Repair Manual).

1. Hey, I need a repair manual for a full size Dodge Puck-up truck Year 1999 for 24 value diesel engine. Have you got or will have in the future?



2. The year is not new enough. When I had that year Vehicle it was ok. I have a '98 Quad Cab, and Trannie went out, I wanted to research it. Cant find a book. My wife has a '98 quad cab and the trannie went. The front wheel bearings are supposed to be greasable in my V-10, Need to find out how to do that. Need the book. Asked for one from the Library, but nothing has come back yet. thanks Mike

4 comments about Chrysler: Cirrus/Stratus/Sebring/Avenger/Breeze 1995-98: Covers all U.S. and Canadian models of Chrysler Cirrus, Sebring, Dodge Avenger, Stratus and Plymouth ... (Chilton's Total Car Care Repair Manual).

1. i needed to rebuild starter motor but no have information on i



2. I bought the book for help in changing the serpantine and power steering belts on my Sebring JXi. The instructions were very clear and the diagrams excellent. This is one of the better Chilton's manuals



3. These manuals are a "must have" for me. I've always had one for all of my cars, and they've helped me with belts, radiators, electrical diagrams, alternators, suspensions, etc. The book pays for itself by letting you do it yourself instead of paying someone else.



4. I have a '98 Cirrus with 2.5 engine. I bought the manual for guidance in changing spark plugs. The removal & installation section on page 1-39 and 1-40 only addresses the front 3 plugs. It is obvious by looking at the engine that something (the intake manifold plenum) must be removed in order to get to the back 3 plugs. By going to pages 3-23 & 3-24, the engine repair section, removal of the plenum is discribed. Is all of this necessary if the ultimate goal is just changing the plugs? Can the fuel line and the throttle body stay connected while the plenum is moved to one side? Maybe trial and error with provide the answer.

2 comments about Chrysler.

1. This is a nice coffee table book but short on content if you are looking for any real information on the history of Chrysler and the related marques.

   You can't cover all that history in a large print book with a few color photos. I was looking for production numbers, VIN codes, engine information. Almost none of that here.

   If you are buying a gift for a Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth or DeSoto fan, this is not the book. They will already know more than you find here. If you want a few excellent photos and not much content, this is your book.




2. If you're looking to give a history buff or general car enthusiast an interesting and detailed, but concise, book on the history of the Chrysler Corporation, this one is a good choice. Dennis Adler does an excellent job in describing the impact that Chrysler, and its divisions, have had on the world from the company's founding in 1926 to its merger with Mercedes Benz that led to the creation of Daimler Chrysler. He acieves this by describing each era important to the company's history through eloquent written word and superb photographs. Anyone who is a fan of Chrysler or simply likes cars in general would really appreciate this book. If, however, one were looking for a book with more specific detail into the company's history, it would be hard to do so in anything less than a full-length novel. Furthermore, if it is an individual vehicle from Chrysler that one is into, then this probably isn't the right book, especially if that person is looking for detailed technical information on specific vehicles. This is a book of history, not a technical manual that you would find at Pep Boys.

4 comments about MOPAR Muscle: 50 Years.

1. A general look at Chrysler performance cars from the past and present with splendid photographs (courtesy of David Newhardt). The book looks at all the muscle/pony cars that Chrysler developed and built over the past 50 years and discusses each models development and year-to-year changes. As well, the author, to his credit, did not lament over the past and all that was lost (as some authors do) but instead also discussed new and exciting models Chrysler had been releasing over the past couple of years (300C, Crossfire, etc). And did I mention the photos were fantastic? However, the book does have some failings and it's mostly due to the writing and the layout. Although the author should be credited on giving a comprehensive view of Chrysler's performance cars (new and old), his actual text leaves much to be desired. I found the writing on each model to be quite dull at times as the major focus of the author was only on the model itself (discussing yearly changes and additions to the option list) and not on the actual industry and trends that inspired their development. I found that very little was spoken of Chrysler's competitors who had major impacts on the models Chrysler created and released. Paragraphs detailing year-to-year changes just didn't make for exciting reading (I'm sure there are technical books which would give more comprehensive detail on the yearly differences between models if that were ones desire). This was especially apparent when the earlier models were being discussed. By the time the author arrived to the present however, he had begun providing more details as to the how's and whys of each new models development. This was, again, to his credit. The other issue I had was that I found most of the pictures did not match up to the text (regardless of how dull it was). For example, the author was discussing the Chrysler 300G to L but only provided pictures of the 300F (about a dozen pictures of the same model taken at different angles). Another was where the author showed a number of pictures of the '69 `Cuda 440 but only dedicates one sentence to the car (which basically said the car was offered in '69). Although I do understand the difficulty in aligning photographs and in fact even obtaining some photos, I still believe more effort was needed here. There is nothing more frustrating then to be looking at photographs that are almost 10 years behind the text as well as reading about models with no available pictures (maybe I've never seen a 300L before). Overall, the book does a decent job of covering all the major models and providing a reasonable amount of detail. The pictures were excellent and there was some decent textual coverage of the models. It just got a little tedious after a while.



2. what can I say? WOW.... this is a very nice book with hundred of color pictures and lots of great info.... a must of all true MOPAR guys.



3. I loved Randy Leffingwell's Mustang and Corvette anniversary books and praised them in my site reviews. I was attracted to Mopar Muscle since I wasn't as familiar with the Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth sport coupe and sedan lines from the 1950s to the '70s as I was with Chevys, Fords, and Pontiacs.
   
   Robert Genat takes off where Randy Leffingwell left off. Genat has a lot on his shoulders writing this book. Mopar Muscle looks at not one, but many vehicles offered by Chrysler for a half-century. Genat has a lot to pack into a hardcover book and he does the job ably.
   
   Genat starts with the Chrysler C-300 and its founding role for muscle cars. From there, Genat looks at Dodge and Plymouth offerings in the late 1950s and early 1960s and takes a big bulk of the book writing about the famous Mopar machines from the middle 1960s to the early 1970s in great detail.
   
   Genat has some weaknesses. Genat focuses on the classic Mopar lines from the 1950s to the early '70s and, from there, skips over to the Viper in the early '90s. Genat overlooks almost two decades of weakened, but important machines. He does not mention the 1970s and '80s Chargers, the Chrysler/Shelby projects, or the 1990s Stealth and Talon. Genat also fails to mention much about Chrysler's racing efforts. The book ends short before recent SRT efforts and the new Charger. The photography is excellent, but the variety is severely lacking. You could be reading about a Barracuda and have page after page of only Chargers.
   
   Genat has a fine book. It's not perfect, but when are books ever? Mopar Muscle may not live up to the light the way Leffingwell's books did, but he does a good job nevertheless.



4. Having read the somewhat mediocre reviews on this site I've decided to order the paperback edition, but was so thoroughly impressed by the contents and presentation that I traded it in for the large format hardcover edition.
   
   Having purchased most of the books on american cars published by Motorbooks (Mustang, Corvette, Chevy SS, Camaro to name a few) I can confidently state that this book stands with the best of them. The organization is very nice, with chapters arranged by Mopar body types (B-bodies, E-bodies, etc.) and manages to provide a nice coverage of each topic without overwhelming the reader with unnecessary technicalities. The photography is simply superb, in the best Motorbooks tradition.
   
   The book covers all of the landmark Mopar muscle cars, the Viper and some of the most recent efforts. However, do not expect to find information on newest SRT-8s, Chargers/Magnums etc as the book was published before their production started.
   
   Highly recommended not only Mopar fans, but anyone with interest in classic muscle cars.

3 comments about Standard Catalog of Chrysler, 1914-2000 (Standard Catalog of Chrysler).

1. A great resource with almost TOO much info to devote alot of print to each car. Lists production numbers, and brings back alot of memories. For having so many models, the book does quite well. Also, nice histories of each Chrysler brand, incl DeSoto, Eagle, and Imperial. Lots of pictures of just about every car listed.
   I recommend it as a great overview of Chrysler's developement.



2. Okay for general information. Covers too many years for details about any one model or year.



3. The information inside this book are great for reference and cross reference. Not much in the way of pictures but it catalogs the history and the working parts of the cars.

1 comments about CHRYSLER Full-Size Trucks, 1997-00 (Chilton's Total Car Care Repair Manual).

1. I am a professional mechanic so I work on my own vehicles, to save some money over buying the repair manuals offered by Dodge I decided to purchase this manual for a rear anti-lock brake problem I'm having. When I found the correct section of the book,I thought that I had it made, the codes were there, pictures of the componets were there, great, I thought. So I began reading the text on obtaining trouble codes to isolate my vehicles problem. It tells you how to get the codes by shorting the diagnostic terminal to ground then read the codes on the ABS light on the dash, cool! Where's the connector? And which terminals at the connector once you find it!!! No pictures or descriptions of where this connector is located what it looks like or how many wires it contains. So thought I'd go to the wiring diagrams and at least find the terminal numbers or wire color codes to the ABS computer maybe that will help, NOT! All the wiring diagram shows is the feed wire from the engine computer to the ABS computer with a block that says "to ABS computer"! Not even a diagram of the ABS system! Not much help!!! And very frustrating!! BUY THE MOPAR BOOK FOR 129.00!! Thats if your going to do anything past oil changes and spark plugs!!

5 comments about Ptown: Art, Sex, and Money on the Outer Cape.

1. I do not know nor have I ever met Mr. Manso. I think he has written a better than average book that is entertaining, enlightening and sadly disturbing. Let me first point out that the negative reviews here have no substance. They more resemble hysterical reactions of bratty children caught misbehaving than book reviews written by intelligent adults. They do not cite examples from the book itself to take issue with but rather rely on emotional name-calling and imaginary conclusions arrived at without any support. Manso wrote a fine book the facts of which are mostly in the public domain and independently verifiable to anyone taking real issue.
   
   Peter Manso discusses Provincetown's history, evolution and devolution of one of the most exciting and interesting cities of the world. As a straight man that has fallen in love with Provincetown over 15 years ago, I am very grateful to Mr. Manso for pointing out some of Provincetown's current problems. I have considered buying a house there and living in it year round. But after reading it and some of the reviews here on Amazon, Manso's critique has been thoroughly confirmed. It seems that there are people who hate the idea of tolerance even while pretending to be "politically correct." They seem to reject heterosexuals and homosexuals living, working and playing side by side.
   
   Tolerance is for me an extremely important quality in the town I wish to live in for the rest of my life. However, it seems to be undesirable to some. According to at least one reviewer, paranoid militant lesbians have launched an attack on not just heterosexuals who have the audacity to want to live or even just visit P-town, but even on homosexuals who don't pledge allegiance to the party line. The reviewer is a male homosexual.
   
   One of Provincetown's most endearing qualities to me has been its tolerance and willingness to live and let live. I have loved its rejection of mindless mainstream mores. That may sadly be going the way of most other American towns that have an "us against them mentality." It is ironic that gays and lesbians that have been on the receiving end of the discrimination stick would now turn into reverse bigots. What a great way to insure more fear and hate! Bravo! You have thrown down the gauntlet to those homophobes for whom your exclusivity fulfills their prophecies.
   
   On my last visit to Provincetown I stopped into a real estate office and confirmed Manso's allegations of property values driving out the very people that have been born there and who welcomed the wealthy gays who now seem set on throwing out the poor Portuguese, painters, writers and anyone else who can't afford the rent they are now setting.
   
   My wife and I have a number of gay and lesbian friends. One of them has told me a number of times how he dislikes many gays and lesbians that want contact with only homosexuals. I didn't really believe that many homosexuals were like that. I couldn't understand how he believed that let alone that it might be true. After reading Manso's book and the reviews it has inspired I have come to see what my friend is talking about. Perhaps some gays and lesbians do want a town exclusively homosexual. All I can say to them is beware what you wish for! Segregation has never produced anything good thing.



2. While at some points wildly historically innacurate, I might be the best person to review this book other than Mr Manso himself. I know, on a first name basis, everyone who was profiled most heavily in that book, and I have met Mr Manso on several occasions. I lived there untill my father and I had to move last year because of heavily rising property taxes.
   
   The book is, as a whole- exaggerated. And yes, Manso is run out of town, and almost universally disliked. He's a nice person, but after airing everyone's dirty laundry, he has to deal with the consequences.
   His comments on the gay community have been overblown. Millionaires have blown out me, my friends and family out of the town. The Millionaires happent o be- gay. I would be saying the same thing if the millionaires were straight, mind you.
   
   On the whole, a lot of people's reviews of this book got me upset. My town isn't a lesson to be learned- sure, many of the things I grew up with have come and gone, like ice cream and fast food joints owned my what's his name Silva and such, but if all one can see is the psycolgical changes in the make-up of the place, then- you're not looking close enough.
   The sun sets the same way, and the monument will always get dressed up around Thanksgiving, and there will always be the ocean. Long after Provincetown becomes a Gays only Utopia, you will find the ocean, and the light and all that makes it beautiful.



3. I don't think the point of Manso's book is homophobic, but I do think it is prejudiced. Manso is prejudiced in favor of the bohemian strain of Provincetown history in which artists (straight and gay, American and foreign) came to Provincetown as a refuge from the "square" world and, more or less, managed to co-exist with the native Yankees and Portugese. Because bohemians strike an egalitarian pose, whether or not they are wealthy (and many Provincetown bohemians were very wealthy), the bohemian dominance of Provincetown for most of the 20th century had a leveling influence. A wealthy Portugese fisherman or Yankee businessman's home would not seem much different from that of a wealthy artist like Robert Motherwell.
   
   Those who know Provincetown, as Manso certainly does, knows that there was an informal "cap" on ostentation. If you owned an old sea captain's home from the 19th century, you could fix it up just so (and you were almost expected to), whether you were rich enough to live in it yourself for two months in the summer only, or whether you ran it as a gay guesthouse year-round. If you were a wealthy art dealer from New York, you could build a lovely waterfront home in the East End, but God forbid it should look showy (except for the garden), or dwarf the converted sail loft next door.
   
   Manso's point, I think, is that this changed when people began to purchase real estate in Provincetown both as a financial investment and as a manifestation of their own financial success-conspicuous consumption. That Provincetown had remained largely free of this for most of the 20th century, while the Hamptons, Jackson Hole, and other destinations became bloated with ostentation, was a perverse product of the dominant bohemian class. What Manso may not make clear enough is that the dominance of this class was an anomaly; it couldn't last. Eventually, somebody or some group was going to decide that Provincetown was THE PLACE to display its financial success, just as the bohemians declared in the 1910s and 20s that Provincetown was THE PLACE to let it all hang out. Because real estate is the dominant financial market of the late 20th and early 21st century, and Provincetown is one of those places that only has a little bit of it (like Key West, like Manhattan, like the Hollywood Hills) this unstoppable trend inevitably had to manifest itself in the real estate market. And, as Manso points out, a small number of millionaires can quickly crush the affordable housing market in a physically tiny place like Provincetown; it takes longer in a place like Manhattan or Santa Fe.
   
   Really, Manso's book is an elegy to a simpler-or simply stupider-time in which bohemians (first socialists, then beats, then hippies, then a more punky strain, and ALWAYS gays and lesbians) ruled the cultural life of Provincetown. As Manso points out in the cautionary tales of Ciro Cozzi and Tony Jackett, those who were of this world put art, booze, drugs, good times, and sex (not necessarily in that order) above maximizing the value of their real estate. Not so the new class of wealthy gays for whom real estate in Provincetown is the point. I think the book does a pretty good job of making it clear that these gays feel Provincetown is THEIR town, and since real estate is what matters to them (and everybody else, these days) there is no more sincere form of flattery than to develop great digs in Ptown.
   
   Crusty dune poets like Harry Kemp may spin in their graves in the new Provincetown, but the reality is that anyone today who could be transported back to the Provincetown Tennis Club in its heyday in the 1970s would have laughed at the mixed doubles played by aging communists and second tier abstract expressionist painters with lesbian photographers and hippie Jewish real estate millionaires from the Upper West Side on a dusty, pitted court with tumbledown chicken wire fences. All of this presided over by the slicked-back male pulchritude of the PhD pro, Chris Busa. These people WANTED Provincetown this way, and as long as they dominated Provincetown, they could keep it this way. But the fact is that they started to die-of old age and AIDS-and a younger group took over. That group thinks the funky Tennis Club sucks. And they are right; it really is a joke. There are better tennis courts at many minimum security prisons. Trying to explain to them why the Tennis Club was actually great in its own weird way, is like trying to explain why you loved your first junior high boyfriend or girlfriend. You eventually learn that you should just not bother. Peter Manso did bother in Ptown, and I think he should get some credit for that effort, and not simply be branded a homophobe, which is hardly the point of this book.
   
   [...]



4. I suspect all the negative reviews of Ptown were written by Norman Mailer, under various pseudonyms. His hatred of Manso and the book is legendary. But this is a great work. As someone who's been coming to Cape Cod for the last 52 years I have seen the change for the worse that Ptown (yes, we call it that) has undergone. The funky, free-spirited town where everyone does his/her thing as long as no one gets hurt has been replaced by a sort of gay Disneyland. Thank you, Mr. Manso, for telling the world about this.
   
   To borrow a phrase from the book, Manso isn't homophobic, he's wealthophobic. Sure, new money and the people who own it are ruining Cape Cod from the canal to Race Point. The fact that those who are ruining Ptown are gay is just coincidence. Let's not even get into the gross environmental destruction they're laying (or trying to lay) on that fragile strip of sand. What they are bringing to the town is ostentation and bloated self-importance at the expense of others, including fellow gays. A gang of rich bullies should not have the power to destroy a way of life. Let this be a lesson for any other non-conformist town that values things as they are.



5. Peter Manso is an incredible Jerk who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But, I salute him for his fight against the Truro Police Dept mafia. Fight the good fight brother! Spend that trust fund on the legal injustices of the the TPD!

5 comments about Taken for a Ride : How Daimler-Benz Drove off with Chrysler.

1. Sometimes the reading gets boring in too many details, but the facts in this book are INCREDIBLE!
   It shows that Juergen Schrempp never wanted to merge, but to buy, Bob Eaton was totally involved and everybody else was taken by surprise. Bob Eaton never actually ran the company, maybe that is why he sold it.



2. If you are looking to find out exactly how the Germans came in and stole Chrysler out from under its American leadership, this is the book for you. Superbly written and researched, the book is a page turner that kept me up till the early morning hours. I highly recommend it and hope that nothing like this ever happens again in corporate America. "Taken for a Ride" couldn't be a more fitting title.



3. I don't know how Vlasic was able to get the information in this book. The conversations ring true to me and this story feels as if it really could have occurred the way Vlasic describes it. This is one of the best books I have read in the past year. He is able to take a somewhat chaotic true story and assemble a story that flows smoothly yet also seems accurate. His ability to draw a picture of the characters is outstanding and they have proven quite prescient as time has passed.



4. In 2000, hot on the heels of the Daimler-Chrysler merger, Bill Vlasic and Bradley A. Stertz, both of the Detroit Free Press, chronicled the merger and the run-up to it. Being from Detroit, lament pervades an otherwise riveting story full of intrigue from the Chrysler executives fending off raider/financier Kirk Kerkorian, through the unrelenting pace of the merger talks, and finally the aftermath where the former Chrysler executives started to roll over or jump ship.
   
   At the book's core are the merger negotiations and the power struggle that followed. Starkly contrasted are the styles of Jurgen Schrempp, the awesome Daimler-Benz Chairman, and Bob Eaton, his diffident Chrysler counterpart. From the outset, Eaton is cast as a weakling who crumbles in the face of bigger personalities. The horrendous miscommunication between Eaton and Kerkorian on the eve of Kerkorian's acquisition announcement foreshadows Eaton's flaky approach to the negotiations with Daimler. Throughout the book, Eaton is portrayed as hapless and hopeless. An outsider, chosen as CEO because of a clash of egos that disqualified the vastly more talented Bob Lutz (now the septuagenarian Vice-Chairman of General Motors), he, by all the books accounts, failed to ever become part of Chrysler. Time and again, Eaton is shown to be a ditherer and a weakling - indeed he is reported to have broken down in front of hundreds of senior managers no fewer than three times.
   
   Across the table from Eaton is Jurgen Schrempp, a big man with an insatiable appetite for action. Whether against internal Daimler rival Helmut Werner or at the table with Eaton, he comes off as a brilliant strategist with an unrelenting drive who lives for the big moments.
   
   Irrespective of how the market will judge the merger, the book offers useful lessons for negotiators. The Americans proved the negotiator's adage that failing to prepare is preparing to fail. The Daimler executives set their objectives and then prepared their strategy meticulously. Schrempp created alternatives to a negotiated solution, including the unlikely possibility of an alliance with the Ford Motor Company. At every step, by the Chrysler management team's own admission, they were out-prepared by as much as eighteen months.
   
   The weakness of the book is the authors' undisguised disappointment with the "loss" of an American industrial icon. It is an absolute hatchet job on Eaton who cannot possibly be as pathetic as he is made out to be. After the merger, the German executives are cast as jealous bureaucrats defending their turf. It is hard to determine whether this is an accurate description or the ever-present regret of the authors.



5. The take over of Chrysler by Diamler-Benz was heralded as the "merger of equals". This merger was a joke that was really a buyout of an American icon. The story of the merger is one of intrigue on two continents and is told very well here. It is an interesting book and very well written. I highly recommend it for those who want to see what happened at Chrysler after Iacocca retired.

3 comments about Collaborative Advantage: Winning through Extended Enterprise Supplier Networks.

1. Jeffrey Dyer, an accomplished scholar and management teacher, has developed a cogent and sophisticated theory of extended enterprise management based on a wealth of empirical data from the history of Toyota in Japan and from his six-year study of Chrysler Corp. before its merger with Daimler-Benz. Beyond being a detailed and rigorous case study of the automobile manufacturing industry, Dyer's book presents an extremely valuable model for vertical integration. His model can be applied to other complex product industries, though he is honest about the limits of its applicability. This book provides a clear, effective blueprint for achieving value-chain collaboration. We [...] recommend it to consultants, executives in complex product industries and leaders in firms that supply components or materials. If you always suspected you were part of a greater whole, now you can be sure.



2. Having followed Dyer's other research, I think that this is a theoretically elegant piece of work. He builds further on his pieces in SMJ (with Singh from Wharton) and AMR and illustrates the concepts of relationship-based assets in firm networks. The running exemplar has he uses (Toyota) illustrates his theoretical arguments quite elonquently. The book also highlights the limitations of his concept of collaborative advantage, and his closing chapter illustrates how cultural differences (here with Benz) can keep this strategy from becoming reality. This book is not for folks looking for cut-out recipies. This book is a MUST for researchers and managers who like to think instead of searching for cookbooks! The concluding chapter is a gem because it highlights our gaps in knowledge. This is an excellent book, and having read Dyer's other works, it's high quality comes as very little surprise. Buy, own, read, reread, and profusely highlight your own copy! VERY highly recommended.



3. The pursuit of knowledge that gives us an understanding of factors that determine success in the market place has always considered "the firm" as the unit of analysis. This has been the case with microeconomics, game theory, competitive strategy and many such specialized areas of research. Cartels that manipulate supply and prices are perhaps an exception to this rule. If, instead of considering the firm as the unit, we consider a group of firms teaming together to collectively provide value to the customer and succeed as a unique identity as a unit of analysis, the methodology to understand competition would undergo a paradigm shift. This book is precisely about this concept as applicable to the automobile industry.

   In the early half of the last century it was possible to go to the countryside for a picnic in a Ford Model T car, disassemble and reassemble it with a simple wrench and drive back home in the evening. Today we need computers to diagnose even a simple problem under the hood of cars tailor made to suit individual needs. Given the increase in complexity, explosion of technology and customer preferences, it is impossible for a single firm to ever think of manufacturing even half the components. (River Rouge will be remembered in history as the most ambitious plan of an automotive giant to make all parts of the automobile - including steel and timber from within the company. At best a fairy tale for kids of the twenty first century!).

   This book is the summary of an excellent research study of the automobile industry in the 1990's with focus on Toyota and Chrysler. These companies have significantly different "governance structure" (the proportion of parts made in-house, procured from partner firms, and from arms'-length suppliers) from their competitors- GM and Ford. The firms that have a higher proportion of parts that are bought from partner suppliers have a clear edge over competitors that use arm's-length suppliers for the same parts. Extensive data has been collected, analyzed and tested to substantiate the statements made in the text.

   Three characteristics that distinguish between partner suppliers from arm's length suppliers- Dedicated asset investments, Knowledge sharing routines and Inter-firm trust form the virtuous triangle that make these partnerships succeed. The results of such partnerships show clearly in tangible terms - Higher profitability per vehicle, better quality, faster time to market, and more new models for customers; the key parameters that enable Toyota and Chrysler to drive at top speed. "It 's not the big that eat the small but it's the fast that eat the slow".

   Taking lessons from Toyota, Chrysler adopts concrete programs to consolidate its suppliers, integrate and partner with them to deliver higher value at lower cost to the customer.

   Though this research is restricted to the automobile industry, the fundamental principles of "extended enterprise" can be extended across industries.

   Highly recommended for all managers and a must read for those working in procurement processes. Next time your supplier drops in, think of this book and start a new relationship.