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Marchionne completed Fiat-Chrysler deal from a Florida beach

Sergio Marchionne is the CEO of Fiat, which as you may have heard, has finally worked up a deal to finish acquiring the Chrysler Group after months of bargaining with the United Auto Workers and its VEBA healthcare trust, which owned just over 40 percent of the American brand. Where was Marchionne when the deal was finally hammered out? Well, not tucked away in a frigid Detroit board room until the wee hours of the morning.
Nope, one of the largest deals in automotive history was reportedly hammered out on the beach - at the home of a banker, in the Florida resort town of Vero Beach. Marchionne traveled to the home of Alain Lebec, a senior managing director at Brock Capital LLC, one of the advisory companies for the VEBA fund, where both sides met to make final arrangements in the $4.35-billion exchange. The location of the final deal, though, is nearly as remarkable as the pace with which it came about.
According to anonymous sources pinned down by Automotive News Europe, before the meeting, the two sides were meeting in Detroit as recently as December 19, which is where Fiat made one of its final revised offers. Naturally, the VEBA made a counter offer, which led Marchionne to initiate the Vero Beach meeting.

Automakers donating money, vehicles and supplies to Oklahoma tornado relief effort

Judging by the destruction the Oklahoma City area experienced earlier this week, residents are going to need a lot of help in coming months. Fortunately, a number of automakers - including General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Volkswagen, Honda and Toyota - have stepped up to donate money, supplies and vehicles to aid in the recovery and rebuilding processes.
Here's a quick rundown of which automakers have pitched in and what each contributed so far:
Ford Motor Company has donating $250,000 and a Transit Connect to the American Red Cross, and it will match all other donations made to the Red Cross (up to $250,000) using a special URL tied to the latter's website (link here). Additionally, its local Oklahoma dealers have thrown in an extra $150,000 for the United Way and the automaker will be offering an extra $500 toward the purchase of a new Ford vehicle.

Dodge Durango to stay classy with Ron Burgundy as spokesperson [w/video]

The upcoming 2014 Dodge Durango has a lot of things going for it, including its 290-horsepower V6 and 360-hp Hemi V8 engine options, an eight-speed automatic and aggressive looks. And now it will have Ron Burgundy, the fictional television news anchor played by comedian Will Ferrell, as a spokesperson, Adweek reports. He follows in the footsteps of other non-fictional Chrysler brand spokespeople such as Eminem, Clint Eastwood and the late Paul Harvey.
Though the star of 2004's Anchorman and the upcoming Anchorman 2 is wildly popular, we're not sure we see a Dodge spokesperson in Burgundy. (Please, no womanizing or scotchy, scotch, scotch before test test drives). But at this point there's no turning back: Chrysler's chief marketing officer Olivier Francois previewed three ad spots at the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) Masters of Marketing conference in Phoenix on Friday, and says Chrysler has already filmed 68(!) Durango ads with the fictional newsman.
According to Adweek, one of the ads previewed had Burgundy highlighting the SUV's glovebox size, and in another he compared its horsepower to a white horse standing next to him. Will this help Dodge Durango sales improve? We can only wait and see. In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts in Comments, and check out the trailer for Anchorman 2 below.