Every few years there’s a story about how some automaker in Michigan is ticketing its employees for driving competitor vehicles or non-American vehicles in its parking lots. This is a stupid rule, and it always becomes a one-day story for these automakers when security haphazardly tickets a Tesla for not being American or whatever. The fact that Stellantis is doing it is hilarious given that, well, Stellantis is a palimpsest of like 9,000 historical brands.
The Morning Dump would like to take a moment to acknowledge that making cars is hard, and everything seems to be making it harder. Ford, for instance, would love to sell you some F-150s. First, it has to figure out how to make them, given the lack of aluminum. Will this make your next F-150 more expensive? Oh yeah. Also more expensive will be shipping stuff, as USPS adds a fuel charge because of the war we’re fighting for reasons.
You know what I thought a good deal was? Magnus Walker sold a bunch of stuff recently, including the little kit 911 he put together, and it went for a reasonably good price.
C’mon Stellantis, What Are We Doing Here?
Photo: Simca
I write about Stellantis a lot, so I don’t think I need to remind most of you that Stellantis is a bunch of historically important and mostly failed automakers that have been conglomerated dozens of times. Fiat Chrysler was a mix of Fiat and Chrysler, obviously, and both of those companies were historically retainers of different failed brands (Maserati, Lancia, AMC, Simca, et cetera). Then glommed onto this was Opel, from GM Europe, and PSA, itself a mix of French automakers not associated with Renault. It’s somewhat challenging to think of a brand that’s never been a part of one of the various defunct automakers that now form Stellantis.
You’d think that this would mean that the company would get rid of its very shortsighted policy of making employees with competitive vehicles park far away from the entrance. Michigan gets very cold for a lot of the year, and then gets hit with huge storms at other times. Making someone park in a far off lot because they took their husband’s Honda to work sucks, as David wrote almost exactly ten years ago:
This might sound counterintuitive on the face of it, but employees who drive a competitor’s cars are a company’s biggest asset. They bring perspectives to automotive design and engineering that differ from those of people who have all been driving the same few company-built products throughout the years. There’s no need to punish these competitive-car owners. On the contrary, you want them on your team.
I think that’s absolutely correct. I don’t want writers who only read The Autopian, I want writers who read everything. So has Stellantis abandoned this policy? Of course not! As The Wall Street Journal reports, enforcement is alive and well, and also hilarious:
A Stellantis spokeswoman said preferred parking is reserved for company-branded vehicles. “Employees must adhere to posted signage and communications,” she said.
The results can be confusing and, at times, amusing. One online user said they were ticketed for parking an Eagle Talon sports car in a Stellantis lot, despite Eagle being a long-defunct nameplate from Chrysler, which is now owned by Stellantis.
[…]
Stellantis said that given the company’s long history and broad portfolio of legacy brands, older vehicles may be misidentified by security.
“Stellantis is reviewing its processes to help prevent such situations in the future,” the company said. “Employees are encouraged to contact Corporate Security if they believe a parking warning has been issued in error so it can be reviewed and addressed promptly.”
SO MANY BRANDS! There are so many ex-Stellantis brands!
Ok, let’s take the photo above. What would happen if I drove a Matra-Simca Rancho to Auburn Hills and parked up front? Simca was a French company, founded by Fiat, that then became Chrysler Europe. What was left of Simca was sold to the company that eventually became PSA Peugeot Citroën, which was then merged with Fiat Chrysler to create Stellantis.
What about a Ford Comète? The Comète is a Ford, but Ford SAF was eventually incorporated into Simca. Are all Ford France cars thus, in a way, Stellantis cars?
Good Luck Getting A New F-150 On The Cheap
Photo: Ford
The Ford F-150 is, typically, one of the most popular vehicles in the world. Ford sells every one it can build. It’s the building them that’s the problem. The F-150 relies on a lot of aluminum, and one of the major plants that provides aluminum for Ford caught on fire last year. Then it caught on fire again.
Can you guess what happens next? The Freep has the inevitable outcome:
The tight inventory could mean car buyers might pay more for an new F-150.
That’s because the Dearborn-based automaker is using what aluminum it can obtain to build more of the profitable high-end trims of the F-150, which have an average list price of about $87,000, said David Greene, principal of Marketplace and Industry Analytics at www.cars.com. Ford is building fewer entry-level F-150s, which have an average list price on Cars.com of about $52,000, Greene said.
Greene said making more of the pricier trims rather than base models is a strategy automakers deployed in 2021 when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the supply chain, causing a shortage of semiconductor chips, which carmakers use in vehicle electronics.
If only there were a word for this. Oh, right, Trimflation! Jamie LaRue shall rue the day she didn’t mention trimflation. Or, she won’t at all, and if I see her next week at the auto show, I’ll just be polite and not mention it. But I’ll be thinking it!
Shipping Packages Via The USPS Is About To Get 8% More Expensive
Photo credit: USPS
There’s a war. It might end the way it started, which is to say randomly and uncertainly. Either way, gas prices are elevated and likely to stay that way for a bit. This is impacting the postal service, which is going to add a fuel surcharge of 8% to packages according to the WSJ:
The 8% surcharge will begin on April 26, and the current plan is to phase it out on Jan. 17, 2027, the Postal Service said in a statement Wednesday that confirmed earlier reporting by The Wall Street Journal. The fee will apply to packages but not letter mail.
Other parcel carriers, including FedEx and United Parcel Service, have imposed fuel surcharges for years—alongside a basket of other surcharges and fees. Both FedEx and UPS have dramatically raised their fuel surcharges in recent weeks as the price of oil has increased amid the turmoil in the Middle East.
Diesel prices reached $5.38 a gallon this week, up 51% from a year earlier.
Conner Oberst would never.
$66,000 For The Kit Bash Magnus Walker 911 Seems Like A Decent Price
Photo: RM Auctions
Our old pal Magnus Walker auctioned 16 cars and a bunch of other stuff recently, and the whole collection raised about $2 million, including $308k for a 1996 Porsche 911 S. As we mentioned before, this included what’s basically an Urban Outlaw kitbash starter kit. Also, it came with shoes!
The bidding for the starter kit ended at $66,000, which included:
German-delivery 1968 911 L coupe with additional hood, fender, 911 S fiberglass front bumper, 911 R-style louvered quarter windows, rear body panel, and more
Desirable 901/10 911 S 2.0-liter long block
Rare early 901/02 911 S five-speed gearbox
Further accompanied by four Minilite wheels, brake rotors, shocks, early Scheel seat, shifter and replacement dash
Complete with Magnus Walker Special Edition MOMO Prototipo steering wheel, Nike SB Dunk “277” sneakers, hat, and stickers
That’s a lot of kit! It also actually outsold this flat nose conversion by a bit.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
The country music of my youth doesn’t get enough credit for being clever. I think this is both a result of all the shallow, Swedish-produced pop country that followed and the deplatforming of great female artists like Miranda Lambert by country radio. It’s therefore a little encouraging to see Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” performing well. It gets double points for being co-written by Lambert and for the George Strait reference.
The Big Question
What’s the best technically-Stellantis product to drive to Stellantis HQ?
Top photo: Stellantis; Bring a Trailer; DepositPhotos.com