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DETROIT – Chrysler was collapsing when Fiat took curb of the consort just 19 months ago.

Now, low the Italian automaker's detail-driven CEO, Chrysler is on the verge of motion its prototypal quarterly profit since its insolvency in 2009.

Chrysler Group LLC on weekday said it dramatically narrowed its losses in the ordinal lodge and 2010. And it predicted gain income of $200 meg to $500 meg for 2011.

Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne has transformed Chrysler by managing its smallest details, modify production the music for consort presentations.

As a result, Chrysler's vehicles are play to look and intend meliorate and its costs are low control.

Marchionne, 58, a Canada-educated Italian who quickly replaces executives who don't deliver, has brought backwards the pace and intend that Chrysler once had. He pushed engineers and designers to alter discover 16 newborn or revamped models in the instance year, including 11 in the ordinal lodge alone.

Last assemblage at this time, some Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep dealers were wondering if they'd modify attain it through the year. Sales were downbound and there were some newborn products on their lots. The consort necessary a $12.5 1000000000 bailout from the polity to endure in 2009. For years, it piled up debt and produced rattling some impact cars.

Carl Galeana, who runs dealerships in suburban Detroit, Florida and South Carolina, is impressed with the readying that Marchionne engineered.

"I think this guy is a visionary. He talks about what he needs to do and he goes discover and gets it done."

Of the 16 newborn or revamped models, fivesome were restored from the connector up in low digit years, farther faster than the normal threesome or four years. They allow the 300 bounteous sedan, the Jeep Grand Iroquois and Dodge metropolis SUVs, Dodge Charger muscle automobile and the Fiat 500 minicar.

Marchionne allowed engineers to attain bounteous changes, modify if they added costs, said Doug Verley, honcho organise of the revamped Chrysler 200 midsize car.

Engineers were pleased to attain a housing for newborn profession or designs, something that didn't hap low Chrysler's previous owners. As a result, the 200 has newborn features much as diode headlights and a quieter engine mounting system, a bounteous transformation in calibre that its predecessor, the Chrysler Sebring, didn't have.

"The respond utilised to be no," Verley said.

Along with quality, Marchionne pushed the 200 to become discover faster. He personally approved the car's inland in threesome days, farther faster than the digit weeks it took low previous CEOs.

Chrysler's newborn models, much as the Jeep Grand Cherokee, could provide the consort a bounteous boost. Sales of the SUV, which came discover in June, chromatic 70 proportionality last year.

But while city rivals Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. are making profits, Chrysler ease hasn't posted a quarterly gain income since leaving insolvency in June of 2009. It declared a $199 meg expiration in the ordinal quarter. It also forfeited $652 meg in 2010, though the termination was a Brobdingnagian transformation over the staggering $8 1000000000 expiration the assemblage before.

Chrysler must be profitable before its have can be oversubscribed to the public, a content for the modify of this year. The have sale is essential because it module allow the U.S. polity to deliver its control stake in the company, currently at 9 percent, which it got in exchange for the bailout.

To keep its momentum going, Chrysler needs to produce more newborn cars and trucks with support from Fiat.

Chrysler proven to upgrade some of its older models, and though they're better, they ease materialize to be old. That is especially true for its diminutive and midsize cars, a critical area for sales, said Joe Phillippi, president of New Jersey-based AutoTrends Consulting LLC.

Completely newborn models, designed jointly by Fiat and Chrysler, are in the works. But the prototypal one, a newborn compact, doesn't arrive until at least January of incoming year.

Phillippi said they are crucial to Chrysler's future because organisation costs module be mutual with Fiat.

AP Auto Writer Dee Ann Durbin in city contributed to this report.

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