Only a year ago, Chrysler Corp. was the sick man of Detroit's auto industry. The plunge in car sales hit the company so much harder than GM or Ford that there was serious talk of bankruptcy. Chrysler's huge inventories of unsold cars were reduced dramatically by a desperate, carnival-style rebate scheme that was reluctantly picked up by competitors. A furious cost-cutting program resulted in layoffs of 20,000 salaried employees, who joined an army of assembly-line workers already on furlough. Still, the losses mounted, and last summer Lynn Townsend resigned after nine years...
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