He can't give it up. Earlier this month, Kirk Kerkorian's claim that he was fooled into agreeing to the 1998 "merger of equals" that turned into a Daimler takeover was denied. Everyone was glad the suit that has been around since 2000 was over. Ha! False hope: it continues. Since Kirk has so much money, we'll gladly take a few million off his hands and agree with him. We think we found our Halloween mask for this year.
DaimlerChrysler posted 30% lower first-quarter earnings citing Mercedes Benz and Smart weighing heavily on the numbers. The Smart restructuring plan put a $1.04 billion chunk in the total and MB revenues were down 11%. The Chrysler Group was not immune to the woes, showing a 7% drop in revenues. All the good news happened at DC's commercial vehicle arm, with revenue increasing 29%.
We're not sure how Ford's new $50 million advertising campaign for the Expedition and Explorer are going to battle the fuel prices that have driven sales down 26.8 percent and 25.1 percent respectively. The Explorer spots will focus on standard electronic stability control with rollover protection while the Expedition ads will focus on the three-valve technology of the 5.4-liter V-8. A revised Explorer comes for 2006 and the Expedition gets redesigned for 2007.
