Rome/New York  - Love has little to do with this particular match: it is dire need in a severe crisis in the motor industry that has pushed Italy's Fiat and the US manufacturer Chrysler into each other's arms.

"Survival is important," Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne recently said of his drawn-out search for a partner.

Along this path, he sees the acquisition of a 35 per cent stake in Chrysler as a "milestone."

However, many experts doubt that Fiat - a company that is fighting huge problems of its own - and its partner Chrysler - which is close to bankruptcy - can really help each other at all.

Two slow runners do not make a marathon racer, experts warned Tuesday. The sector's experts at Merrill Lynch wondered how exactly Fiat could achieve at Chrysler what the German Daimler and the US investment group Cerberus have failed to do.

At the last minute before the financial crisis, Daimler managed to jump off the US carmaker in mid-2007, by selling a majority stake to Cerberus. So far, the Stuttgart-based firm has been desperately trying to sell the remaining 20 per cent it still owns. Nobody wants to buy such a parcel without great incentives.

That is a small wonder: Chrysler is the smallest and weakest of the three large US carmakers, after General Motors (GM) and Ford.

Chrysler has for decades been a permanent construction site. Its US sales have fallen to half. Its international sales are almost non- existent - 90 per cent of its income comes from North America.

Making fuel-saving cars instead of beefy pick-up trucks? There is nothing of that.

Chrysler currently depends on the flow of state loans and must prove to incoming US President Barack Obama by the end of March that it is in a position to survive.

Fiat is supposed to help, Chrysler boss Bob Nardelli hopes. He came on board in 2007, after being ousted from home improvement giant The Home Depot, but the situation has been getting ever worse since then.

Fiat boss Marchionne is somewhat better: after being appointed in the year 2004, he has steered Fiat clear of the collapse that once threatened it.

However, given the sector's current crisis, the Turin-based company is bracing for sharp falls in earnings.

On Thursday, Fiat's board of directors is set to consider the figures for 2008 and the even poorer prospects for 2009. The operative results are set to fall from 3.27 billion euros (4.23 billion dollars) in 2008 to an estimated 1.37 billion euros (1.77 billion dollars) in the current year.

Marchionne sees 2009 as "the toughest year" in his life, and the light at the end of the tunnel is not to be seen before 2010.

Marchionne predicted that only six carmakers around the world are set to survive the crisis. And he made it clear that his own job is at stake in the matter, and that an annual production of 6 million vehicles is needed to survive.

"Fiat has not yet covered half the stretch, so we have to join forces," he said.

Together, Fiat and Chrysler make some 4.5 million cars, so they are not yet in the desired dimension.

Through Chrysler, Fiat gains access to the US market, where the Italians are not yet present with their popular models. And they could also enter the SUV-business, which they have hardly touched on. In turn, Chrysler gets new production for its US plants, as well as platforms and technology for much-needed small cars.

Marchionne declared his great objectives: he wants to take the Fiat group, to which Ferrari and Alfa Romeo also belong, to the top of the car industry in the coming years.

Fiat's current entrance in Chrysler with a 35-per-cent stake is considered only a beginning, and there is speculation about a majority stake.

What Marchionne particularly likes about the Chrysler deal is that Fiat is now, finally, at the wheel. A few years ago, the US giant General Motors bought a stake in Fiat: the tense Italian-American partnership finally collapsed spectacularly, with scenes fit for a Spaghetti Western. (dpa)