MotorTrend nominates Roger Penske for car czar
If an emergency loan for the Detroit 3 makes it through Congress, part of the deal will be an overseer for the industry to make sure the money is spent wisely. Of course, the question is who will fill the car czar's slippers? MotorTrend editor Angus McKenzie has come out in favor of Roger Penske, an interesting choice particular considering his successful at the helm of various business endeavors, not to mention his racing teams. In the past, Penske has even been mentioned as a potential CEO of General Motors.Naturally, since this makes so much sense, it'll never happen. Most likely, either some clueless bureaucrat or a crony of the current administration will get the job. But there's a distinct possibility that whoever fills the position will carry over to the Obama administration.
[Source: MotorTrend | Image: A. Messerschmidt/Getty]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Avinash machado 10:05AM (12/11/2008)
I hope Ralph Nader does not get the job of car Czar.
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SimbaDogg 9:09PM (12/11/2008)
amen to that...knowing bush and his use of cronyism in the past, i wouldn't put it past him. especially in his remaining lame duck days.
i know the daily show isn't ever a fair example to use, but i loved that on tuesday nights episode it showed how the "two presidents" are handling the crisis. obama at a podium, and bush dancing w/ kids. that gave me a good laugh or two.
JPA914 10:06AM (12/11/2008)
Roger would be GREAT for the position!
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Jeff Parris 8:14PM (12/11/2008)
Roger is a moron. He has a management style just like currently resides within the Big3, which is to say, "mismanagement". He ruined Detroit Diesel! Someone take a look at what he's done there. Detroit Diesel is about to close the doors on all of it's distributors because ol' Rog wasn't able to keep up with what was going on within the industry. After 2010 the Series 60 will no longer meet emissions and the only product they will have left is Mercedes engines. And ask Rog how he lost controlling interest in Detroit Diesel. He got it too tight with Mercedes due to racing interests and they ended up with control of Detroit.
In short this guy is just wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong!
Fleming In Tennessee 10:08AM (12/11/2008)
Roger is too tied to unAmerican companies to help America. He has generally promoted unAmerican interests to enrich himself.
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bc 10:10AM (12/11/2008)
He owns several hundred automobile dealerships and it's doubtful that he'd divest them to take the position. You need someone with business and economic sense who isn't already heavily tied to the industry, or who retired some time ago.
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jamie 10:45AM (12/11/2008)
Iacocca??
Afterall, he's been through it all before.
What better choice than someone who understands the business; can revive a failing enterprise; has no lingering interests other than seeing American businesses succeed; and yet is entirely retired from the scene.
Where have all the good managers gone? Perhaps Lee can rekindle the flame better than anyone else I know.
dukeisduke 10:25AM (12/11/2008)
It's funny, but Penske is the first guy I thought of for car czar. It'll more likely be a bean counter, or some business school professor. Neither of which will know nothing more about a car than how to put gas in it.
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casey 10:26AM (12/11/2008)
as long as it's not that tool Senator Richard Shelby.
and Fleming, what do you consider UnAmerican activies? sounds terrible McCarthy-like.
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Ron B 10:34AM (12/11/2008)
So what do you have against Shelby?
Personally he is about the only one I have seen who is actually thinking responsibly. We are talking about money that again our great-great grand children will be still re-paying.
I assume you are all for just handing them the money?
He along with others are against a hand-out and propping up a failing industry. The fact of the matter is do you honestly believe that the $$ they are asking for will carry them long enough to turn profitable?
I for one do not...They will be back again asking for even more money.
Do I want them to fail? NO
I do believe that maybe the best solution is Ch. 11 and restructure. re-negotiate union contracts, restructure debt, write-off idled assets etc.
The auto industry as it is today cannot continue on the course it is on and expect to survive another 12 months!
notYou 3:24PM (12/11/2008)
And what's wrong with McCarthy (other than slinging' his name about in a fit of demagoguery - geez, which sounds so McCarthy-like?).
I mean, can you cite someone he accused of being un-American who wasn't?
ronnie schreiber 2:30PM (12/11/2008)
What do we have against the crooked mouth hypocrite from Alabama?
Let's start with Shelby's key role in the $253 million dollar incentive package Alabama gave to Mercedes to locate their SUV plant in that state. Add another $400 million given to Hyundai, Honda, and Toyota. So his opposition to the Detroit automakers is hardly principled.
Where did that $650 million come from? Alabama gets $1.40 in federal spending on their federal tax dollar. Michigan gets 81 cents. The feds have transferred almost a trillion dollars, well over $800 billion, from the industrial Midwest to the South and Southwest. Since funds at the state level are fungible, that means that Michigan taxpayers have been subsidizing foreign competitors through state governments in Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and elsewhere in the South. BTW, most of those plants have cut back production levels, in part because most of them make SUVs - I guess that Detroit automakers weren't the only ones who didn't anticipate $4/gal gas last summer. BMW is offering buyouts to their SC employees. Even the sainted Honda, a company that rarely makes a mistake is cutting back production in their Alabama plants.
Concerning big Dick Shelby, he lies about my neighbors. He's perpetuating myths that the Detroit companies haven't already done massive restructuring. He acts as this in 1988, not 2008. If he's not afraid of getting a little cold, he's welcome to visit southeastern Michigan and I'll take him on a tour of plants closed to reduce capacity and fixed costs Ford was profitable in the 1st Q of '08. He lies when he says that Detroit sells cars that people don't want to buy - Detroit still has 55% of the market in the US. By Shelby's standards, even a smaller number than 'nobody' must buy Apple computers because they have less than 3% of the personal computer market.
I'm just wondering. If Alabama and the rest of the South is so hospitable to business and the Detroit automakers are so poorly managed, why did all those southern textile plants disappear?
happy_penguin 2:33PM (12/11/2008)
Shelby is a hypocritical t*at whose own, obvious self interests conflict with the crisis at hand.
dukeisduke 10:29AM (12/11/2008)
Another good choice would be Lee Iacocca.
Well, I see that the site redesign hasn't fixed the posting issues. I'm still getting those idiotic "You did it!" messages, followed by the emails that never materialize.
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Kitko 10:30AM (12/11/2008)
Speaking of conflict of interests....
The czar must be a person who has nothing to loose and nothing to gain from the position. A US drug czar is not a heroin addict and doesn't run a nationwide network of heroin distributors.
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Philip Lane 10:49AM (12/11/2008)
You're missing the point. The Car Czar and the Drug Czar are similar in name only.
The Drug Czar's job is to ELIMINATE the illegal drug industry.
The Car Czar's job is to PROMOTE the automobile industry.
That doesn't mean that the Car Czar should blindly throw money at the Big 2.8, but that he should do what is in the best long-term interest of the industry.
The Drug Czar is supposed to hate drugs. The Car Czar should like cars, preferably a lot.
If you want a Car Czar that will treat cars like the Drug Czar treats drugs, then go ahead and nominate Ralph Nader or Al Gore, but Penske's the best option I've heard so far, even with a conflict of interest.
Kitko 11:46AM (12/11/2008)
The Car Czar is supposed to be a top class manager who has experience with restructuralization of big corporations, is without a conflict of interest and has no emotional ties to a brand or department.
Penske is not that kind of guy.
And if the US car industry had the required kind of guy, he'd be already in charge.
ronnie schreiber 2:37PM (12/11/2008)
Penske bought Detroit Diesel when it had lost about $600 million in the previous few years. He turned around the company and it was very profitable when he sold it.
Penske controlled companies do business with virtually every automaker and importer in North America. His dealer groups sell 41 different brands of cars. I suppose you can argue that he's too close to the auto industry, but unless you think he's going to show favoritism to one company at the risk of pissing off all the other companies with whom he does business I don't think that conflict of interest is a problem.
The two logical choices are Penske and Mitt Romney. Romney made his fortune as a turnaround specialist.
The only way that Pelosi and Reid would agree to Romney is if they think he's going to fail.
casey 10:44AM (12/11/2008)
shelby is just for breaking the unions, the unions that built this country and gave us the middle class. Chapter 11 will be the END of the automakers. period. then we will see a rise in unemployment jump from about 7% to about 20+%. the country will be in ruins, do to a few idiotic, backwards thinking good old boys. it's pathetic.
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Stanton 12:13PM (12/11/2008)
For your nightmare scenario to come true, the auto industry, including all supplier and spinoff industries, would have to account for 21 million American jobs. The most apocalyptic doom-mongering scenarios I've read, positing a complete and total shutdown of every US car plant (including foreign-owned ones, because of supplier shutdowns) and every related supplier AND spinoff job puts the number at 3 million jobs short term, 1.8 long term.
Care to elaborate where you got your 20+% unemployment number and "country in ruins" estimate from?