The Longest Day -- Revisited

One year ago today, Chrysler Group LLC lifted the veil of secrecy that shrouded the auto maker after Fiat Auto SpA swooped in to assume management control.

I was among the assembled throng of journalists who witnessed the all-day event, bemoaned by many of my counterparts for being tedious.

(Really? Try being a crime reporter at an all-night stakeout, watching and waiting from a cold car for an imminent police raid on a gambling den that actually was cancelled without your knowledge. That's tedium. But I digress.)

In unprecedented fashion, at least for Detroit, CEO Sergio Marchionne laid bare financial goals, product plans and powertrain programs (which are evolving still).

Today, 12 months from this public airing and some 16 months removed from a gut-wrenching bankruptcy, we see a Chrysler that has posted operating profits for two consecutive quarters, executed a sterling vehicle launch (the '11 Jeep Grand Cherokee) and offers hints of an increasingly aggressive engine-development strategy, evidenced by the "Tiger Shark" project, described by Ward's last week.

Is Chrysler out the woods? Hardly.

The jury has yet to convene on a series of product upgrades (i.e. the Chrysler 200 midsize sedan), let alone the promised Fiat-inspired vehicles such as a C-segment car based on the platform that shoulders the Alfa Romeo Giulietta.

But one thing is certain. The next few years will be anything but tedious for Chrysler watchers.