I bet you know some mediocre people who have gone on to be successful. Frustrating isn't it? But it's the same in the car industry.
Let's take the shareholders of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot who voted on Monday to merge the two companies. Now given 70 per cent of mergers fail and most destroy shareholder value you'd have to think they handed out a lot of free Grappa and Pernod Absinthe at the meeting. Best of all, like in all these deals they paid millions to the branding bandits to come up with a new name for the Italian/American/French makers of some of the world's worst cars: Stellantis.
Stellantis? Sounds like a product to ease stomach pain. Are booze, fast food and crap cars giving you massive heartburn? Then you need Stellantis, now with 14 brands, including the Citroen Cactus and who doesn't feel cactus after driving one? But the branding bandits say there is a logic to the name. As the press release says, "Stellantis is rooted in the Latin verb 'stello' meaning 'to brighten with stars'." As the New York Times said: "Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot approve a merger they need to survive."
As Clive Matthew-Wilson writes in our car bible, Dogandlemon.com: "Peugeot is still a major European car manufacturer, but is plagued by poor quality and out-of-control costs." And Fiat Chrysler? "Fiat Chrysler need each other to survive. Both companies produce low-quality products and both face an uncertain future."
FCA's brands include Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Abarth. And Maserati. In September last year, FCA fronted the investment community with an extraordinary presentation on Maserati. Basically, it said that the 107-year-old brand founded by brothers Alfieri, Bindo, Carlo, Ettore and Ernesto was Stellantis — or, in English, rooted.
Talking of frauds: Road & Track magazine has long specialised in exposing racers who fund their teams through drug smuggling and dealing, Ponzi scheming, payday lending and fraud. Colombia's Juan Camilo Perez Buitrago, better known as JC Perez, raced a beautiful new Mercedes-AMG GT3. Perez wrapped the hood with a Chupacabra (a legendary Puerto Rican vampire type creature or goat-sucker) giving it a gold tooth and wagging tongue and putting it in a car dealer finance person's outfit.