It then emerged that the only official bidder was Devon Motor Works, with it’s lowball $5.5 million bid for the brand. Apparently, that has been rejected. There has been a number of theories though as to why the Viper brand didn’t get sold.

Some say that Chrysler has indeed gotten offers for the Viper as high as $30 million, but Fiat was afraid of the Viper competing with Maserati and Ferrari and therefore was discouraging any offers. I’m not sure what exactly went on with that, I could see either story being true for different reasons.

There has been some speculation that without a buyer, Viper could remain in bankruptcy along with the rest (bad) parts of Chrysler. To me that would be moronic. It clearly has value and is a profitable business.

Why kill a profitable business? Anyway, that isn’t the case. Viper is now a part of the “Good Chrysler” under Fiat ownership. We have no idea what will happen now. Does Fiat keep the brand going, try to sell it or just cut it altogether? No one knows for sure.

What’s not clear is what they intend to do if their bid succeeds; continue building the Viper as it is or base their car’s designs off the Viper’s platform while continuing to use the name. Fact is though, the Viper is a good car and is a profitable business so I think it would be a dumb move on their part to mess with that.

Devon Motor Works has a goal to break the world lap record for a production car at the Nurburgring race track in Germany. They plan to give attempt a go in July, with a pre production debut of the car’s design in August at the Pebble Beach Concours de Elegance.

The design is interesting; a curvy retro-type design done by Swedish designer Daniel Paulin, a previous employee of Ford. The funny thing about this is that I have never heard of Devon Motor Works before this. That right there shows they did something right with this. Either way it works in their favor; they get a ton of publicity for the bid and don’t end up getting Viper or they get a ton of publicity and end up getting a screaming deal.

So Devon Motor Works is looking good with whatever happens. Stay tuned next month for the first glimpse of the car at Nurburging and in August at the Pebble Beach Concours.

Chrysler said it identified many interested parties but according to recent documents filed, not many seem to be seriously pursuing a purchase. Only one bidder has submitted an offer, and for significantly less than Chrysler’s $10 million asking price. That’s pretty shocking given Viper’s notoriety! It must have more to do with the economic situation.

First off, the $10 million asking price is an excellent deal. Even if just the Viper name is included it would be worth it. How much more so if the tooling for producing the car is a part of the deal? That would be huge. What’s more, the lone bidder Devon Motor Works, offered a little less than half of that. Devon Motor Works offered $5.5 million for the brand along with a one year lease contract for the Viper’s assembly plant.

Chrysler says it is reviewing the offer to make sure Devon Motor Works has proper access to financing in order to complete the purchase. If Devon Motor Works does get it though, they will be getting an amazing deal! If I was financially well connected I’d be taking advantage of the opportunities to purchase these valuable assets at amazing prices.

The new campaign aims to cast a better image of the company as it goes through this painful process and hopefully keep the floor from further dropping out under sales as well. Let’s take a look!   

The new campaign is called “We Build” and continues on the new Chrysler’s tagline introduced on May 3rd, ” “We’re building a new car company. Come see what we’re building for you”. Chrysler is intending to use the campaign to allay fears about a bankruptcy and trys to paint the process as a way for them to build better cars and a better company for consumers.

Not surprisingly, the bankruptcy word is never actually used in the advertisements. They just speak to what everyone already knows. The Fiat partnership is mentioned by name though. Fiat has gotten so much press out of the Chrysler deal, it’s crazy!

The advertisement shown has gone up in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today. Interestingly, the first one features future vehicles or concept vehicles like the  Grand Cherokee, 200C and Circuit EV. It’s makes sense because these are some of the most promising future vehicles from the company.

The campaign seems quite effective and well done; I would have suggested the same thing to the company as it undergoes this bankruptcy process (er, sorry…..”restructuring”). Curiously though, as Autoblog pointed out, the campaign doesn’t seem to be going online, which I view as a serious mistake. Online advertising is cheaper and can be very effective.

Other then print, the first ads debut on network primetime television on May 11th, and the Chrysler has issued a press release detailing the content of some of the ones set to air. The “We Build” theme is going global, with all work being done by BBDO Detroit, the advertising agency for all three of Chrysler’s brands.

There will be 2 corporate spots as well as product spots under the theme. The product spots will feature individual models and dealers can tag along a 5-second retail message to each of those. I applaud Chrysler for doing something about the situation and I really like the contents of this new theme. Hopefully everything works out well!