Jeep vs Bronco | Full Throttle | 4

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It's 2008 and the U.S. government spends tense months deciding whether, and then how, to bail out the U.S. auto industry. Chrysler is saved through a forced merger with another foreign suitor — Italy’s Fiat. Fiat’s charismatic chairman makes Jeep the centerpiece of the new Fiat Chrysler. But Jeep also faces new competition as Ford decides to bring the Bronco back. Jeep doesn’t sit idle. It puts more horses under its hood than ever before. And the showroom showdown that follows will result in staggering demand and stunningly high prices for both Jeep and Bronco.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wundery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of Business Wars, ad free right now.
0:06.0	Join Wundery Plus in the Wundery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's December 2008, 2008,
0:19.0	It's December 2008, Washington, D.C. A cold rain is falling on Capitol Hill.
0:25.0	Bob Corker, a 56-year-old silver-haired freshman senator from Tennessee,
0:30.0	stands in the front of his fourth floor office window watching cars pass.
0:35.0	The weather is as dreary as the nation's economy.
0:38.0	Two months earlier, the financial industry nearly collapsed.
0:42.0	Now General Motors and Chrysler are on the
0:44.9	brink of bankruptcy and it looks like Corker will be the deciding vote on
0:49.3	whether Congress bales them out or lets automakers face the death sentence.
0:56.2	At Corker's door is Ron Gettlefinger, the president of the United Auto Workers Union.
1:01.5	Gettlefinger is a 64-year-old Midwesterner who sports a white brush mustache.
1:06.9	He's known as a master negotiator.
1:09.7	The two men shake hands and take seats directly across from each other. They get right to business.
1:14.8	Senator, I hope we can count on your vote.
1:17.8	Run, I honestly don't think Congress should be giving Detroit and the autooworkers a blank check.
1:23.7	Chrysler has to restructure.
1:25.8	I know it owes billions to union workers but everyone has to give.
1:30.1	If you want me to support a bailout, the union's got to take pay cuts.
1:34.0	Gettlefinger frowns.
1:36.0	Senator, I've been working in the car business since I left the family farm when I was 20.
1:40.0	Union membership peaked not long after that, and we've lost a lot of pay since then.
	...

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