One of the Chrysler assets to be transferred to the new company will be the factory in Ontario, Canada that builds the Dodge Challenger. Based on a shortened version of the brand's Charger model it was unveiled in February last year simultaneously at the Chicago and Philadelphia auto shows. The range topping version - seen here - is the muscular Challenger SRT/8 which is powered by the 6.1-litre HEMI engine.

The group of Indiana state pension funds have dramatically appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court this weekend after the Appeal Court refused to rule in their favour meaning that the legal fight to halt the sale of Chrysler's assets has reached the highest court in the land.

The funds' case was dismissed on Monday by Judge Arthur Gonzales who is presiding over the New York Bankruptcy Court that has spent the last month working through Chrysler's restructuring. He said that he believed that the secured lenders had been offered a better cash deal than they would have got if Chrysler's assets were sold off piecemeal. The funds in dispute hold just US$42.5 million, less than 1 percent of the total debt, and they comprise of the Indiana State Police Pension Fund, the Indiana Teacher's Retirement Fund, and the state's Major Moves Construction Fund. They bought the debt in Chrysler in July last year for 43 cents in the dollar.

The funds then took their case to the Court of Appeal last week. On Friday afternoon the Court of Appeal ruled against the funds saying that the sale of Chrysler's assets could go ahead to a consortium of new stakeholders in which the key players are made up of the UAW union's heath fund (55 percent) and Fiat (20 percent). However the Court gave a stay of execution until tomorrow to allow the pension funds to try to take their case to the Supreme Court, the highest legal body in the Unites States. The funds then made their petition to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who is responsible for referrals from the New York Appeals Court. The Supreme Court's ruling when it arrives will be final.

"The need for the court to review the profound issues presented by Chrysler's novel bankruptcy sale far outweighs the cost of delaying," lawyers for the three funds said yesterday in their attempts to justify the decision to take their case all the way to the Supreme Court. "The public is watching and needs to see that, particularly, when the system is under stress, the rule of law will be honoured and an independent judiciary will properly scrutinise the actions of the massively powerful executive branch. The issues presented by this case are of immediate and enduring national significance," the legal team added.

Lawyers for Fiat, Chrysler and the U.S. government have all in recent weeks argued that the sale of Chrysler's best assets is the most promising way forward for the failed automaker and the Indiana pension funds have had their petition dismissed at every stage so far. There has also been little sympathy for their poor judgement in making an investment in Chrysler debt just six months before it filed for Chapter 11 and when the writing was clearly on the wall. However the case is also significant in that any decision will provide a precedent for General Motors' bankruptcy procedure which got underway last week and for this reason alone the Indiana funds won't be successful in their legal battle.