Minivan Plant an Oasis of Cheer, Hope Amid Industry Gloom
November 06, 2008
By Dale Buss
WINDSOR, ONTARIO -- Chrysler and its employees held a party here this week to celebrate one of the company's most glorious achievements. Raucously at times, they marked 25 straight years of making minivans at the production birthplace of what was a revolutionary vehicle concept.
But it was difficult for anyone to ignore the elephants in the room: abysmal auto sales that were being reported elsewhere by the company that day, the dismal financial reports expected by week's end and the increasingly imminent possibility that one or more of Detroit's automakers would be out of business in the next year.
Nevertheless, Chrysler pulled out all the stops. It halted the assembly line and gathered many of the plant's 5,000 workers for a presentation. It unveiled a slightly upgraded Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan as "25th Anniversary" editions. It invited dignitaries, ranging from the mayor of this city directly across the Detroit River from Motown, to a federal-government minister.
Executives and union leaders talked glowingly about how the plant has produced 12 million minivans. Even former CEO Lee Iacocca - who emerged out of the very first minivan at a press event on this plant floor in 1983 after fumbling inside the vehicle to unlock the door - made a star turn, via video.
"With everything going on these days, you may be wondering: What's there to celebrate?" said Iacocca in his video message, appearing nicely aged from the days in the late Seventies and Eighties when he and the minivan helped save the company. And he conceded that he doesn't "know what the future holds."
Then, Iacocca told the crowd what was worth celebrating: "There have been a lot of imitators, but Chrysler is still the gold standard" in the minivan market.
Indeed, a mixed picture is about the best way to look at the status of the Chrysler models and the rest of the minivans segment.
At nearly 542,000 units sold through October this year, overall sales are off about 20 percent in a segment that only a few years ago covered about one million units a year. This decline is pretty much in line with the recent drops in other segments, though, and so minivans' share of the total U.S. market has shrunk only to 4.7 percent so far this year compared with 5 percent last year.
Chrysler still has about 40 percent of the segment in the U.S. market. But that's only after introducing its fifth generation of the vehicles in late 2007, which included nifty new features such as an optional game table between the second and third rows of seats.
And Chrysler just closed its other minivan factory, idling its Fenton, Mo., assembly plant late last month and laying off its 1,500 remaining workers. Meanwhile, this plant is in the midst of a three-week stint during which each of its three shifts will be laid off for one week.
"Don't read newspapers or watch TV or even talk to anyone over the next few months and your life will be a lot less stressful," Chrysler of Canada CEO Reid Bigland told the assembled crowd.
But in just about any imagined combination of Chrysler and GM or any other automaker, minivans are seen as one vehicle platform that would easily survive, because Chrysler's vehicles do still lead the segment; GM (as well as Ford) gave up on minivans a few years ago. Honda's Odyssey is the other strong entry in the segment, but there are a few other players, and they're even growing in number. Volkswagen's new Routan is built by VW in partnership with Chrysler, on a Chrysler minivan platform.
"We'd like to try to keep that negative stuff behind us," said Rick LaPorte, president of the Canadian Auto Workers union, to the proud yet anxious throngs. "The world has changed, but what hasn't changed is our commitment to our customers."
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