Autoblog

The potential partnership between Chrysler and Nissan on which we reported yesterday is officially a done deal, with Nissan agreeing to supply a version of the Versa for Chrysler to sell in South America. This is not, as we were all supposing, a deal that will have the automakers cooperating on any product for the North American market. The two companies, however, are still talking about other ways to buddy up, saying in their press release that they've "agreed to maintain an open dialogue to explore further product-sharing opportunities." It's been reported that Nissan is still interested in Chrysler's truck expertise and it's no secret that the smallest of Detroit's Big Three needs a small car to sell below the Caliber.

This deal, however, is strictly for the South American market. Chrysler is not unfamiliar with this practice of cross-company rebadging, as it sells Dodge-branded Hyundais in Mexico, for instance. So in the end, this partnership appears to be much ado about little. Dodge still has a gaping hole where a small car should be sold in the U.S. and Nissan, despite the advances of Carlos Ghosn towards every domestic U.S. automaker, remains stag.

[Source: Chrysler]