This morning, Chrysler announced that their sales were up 40% over last year. This, after the thoroughly publicized link with Fiat, both to sell the Fiat 500 in the US (sales of which have been unfortunately poor), and with rebranding Alfa Romeo cars as Dodge. Their tactic of revitalizing their US sales by bringing in Euro models seems to be working.

Last year, Ford’s sales were up 11%. Ford had already been going strong throughout the recession, though, and had been bringing their own European designs back into the states, as I’ve pointed out plenty of times.

Back in 1999, Nissan and Renault began a strategic alliance and as part of that, some of Renault’s platforms have been rebranded as Nissan and brought to the US. For instance, the Renault Megane and the Nissan Rogue.

And now, GM has announced a link with French automaker Peugeot to rebrand some of their cars. I anticipate that this will mean the Aveo goes away, or becomes something else… probably the upcoming Peugeot 208.

It’s refreshing to see US Automakers seemingly acknowledging that their cars suck and looking to their options on the Euro market. It’s unfortunate that as part of the process, the excellently done interiors are often stripped out and replaced with cheaper US crap….