Holden, Gale skip festivities for Mitsubishi deal

Were former Chrysler Corp. executives conspicuously absent at press events to announce the alliance with DaimlerChrysler AG and Mitsubishi Motors Corp? Nope, says DCC President Jim Holden. The North American arm of DaimlerChrysler AG was integral in negotiations to form an alliance, he says. "The whole board was involved. Tom Gale (executive vice president, product development and design) was in it up to his eyeballs the whole time and so was I." It was a simply case of logistics, says Mr. Holden. "The announcement part was in Stuttgart and then Tokyo. We were all welcome to go, but I gotta tell you, it meant a nine-hour flight, both ways, to be at a press conference for an hour, when Juergen (DC chairman Juergen Schrempp) was already there," says Mr. Holden. And what about the deal? Chrysler and Mitsubishi are proud of "30 years of history, and we're still doing cars together," says Mr. Holden, adding: There's more to come. No decisions have been made yet, but "we know there's a pony in there someplace. We're looking for the pony now. We're doing really well with the platform sharing that we have done on the coupes, and we know we can expand that." - Complied by Bill Visnic, Mike Arnholt and the WAW staff