BRAMPTON, ONT. -- Prices for DaimlerChrysler Canada Inc.'s two new, rear-wheel-drive, mid-sized cars will start at about $27,000, putting them in the range of other cars in the mid-sized market and alleviating fears their prices would be too high, dealers say.
The new Dodge Magnum station wagon will start at $27,000 and the 300C sedan at about $29,000, dealers said they were told earlier this week at a meeting with Chrysler group president Dieter Zetsche.
"I thought it was going to be $50,000," one dealer said of the 300C sedan. "That was really a big concern that I had that was eliminated."
Those two cars, along with seven other new vehicles the Chrysler group will introduce next year, were shown to dealers at a meeting in Toronto Tuesday and to dealers from Western Canada in Calgary yesterday.
The cars are critical to the Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler AG, which has been hammered in the passenger car segment, where Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and Toyota Motor Corp. have grabbed the lead.
"We're in the Camry-Avalon class," said one dealer who attended the preview, naming two Toyota mid-sized models. "Those are the people that are really eating our lunch."
Prices in the mid-sized car segment now start in the low $20,000 range and top out above $36,000. The highest-priced Magnum will be about $35,000, while the top-of-the-line 300C will be about $42,000, dealers said.
Those prices "sound quite competitive," said industry analyst Richard Cooper, director of the Canadian operations of consulting firm J.D. Power and Associates.
Mr. Cooper cautioned, however, that price is not the only determining factor when consumers decide what vehicle to buy.
"It has to be appealing. Appeal is one of the fundamental reasons why people buy vehicles," he said.
The Magnum and 300C will be assembled at a plant in Brampton, which has undergone a $1.2-billion revamp to switch production from front-wheel-drive vehicles to rear-wheel-drive cars.
Production will begin early in January and the cars will go on sale in the first quarter of 2004, Chrysler group officials told reporters touring the assembly plant yesterday.
"This is a major, major event for us," said Frank Ewasyshyn, senior vice-president of advanced manufacturing engineering.
More important than switching the plant to assemble rear-wheel-drive cars is introducing flexible manufacturing techniques so that the Chrysler group can switch to different models more quickly as market demand shifts.
Flexible manufacturing will reduce costs significantly, however, when it comes to retool the plant for the next generation of vehicles at the Brampton plant in a few years, Mr. Ewasyshyn said.
Flexible manufacturing means about 2,000 workers will assemble at least three different vehicles as they come down the assembly line, plus they can work on a fourth pilot vehicle at the same time. That compares with the typical assembly plant of the 1970s and 1980s, which consisted of a single vehicle rolling off the assembly line and hundreds of millions of dollars in capital spending to switch over to a different model.
The costs for the redevelopment of the plant -- which started as an American Motors Corp. factory in 1986 before then-Chrysler Corp., bought AMC a year later -- were reduced this time by reusing equipment from other factories that still had some life left in it, Chrysler group officials said.
Some equipment from the closed Pillette Road large van factory in Windsor, Ont., is now operating in Brampton, as well as some equipment from a plant in Delaware.
That differs dramatically from the days when the attitude was tear everything out and use as much new equipment and as many new parts as possible. At one media event in Detroit, then Chrysler Corp. chairman Robert Eaton held up a single plastic bag containing the parts on a new Grand Cherokee that had been carried over from a previous version of the vehicle.
"We were probably the poster children for throwing things out," Mr. Ewasyshyn acknowledged yesterday. "That's finished."
Advances in robotic technology will also make new model changes quicker and less expensive, he added. Robots can now lift items weighing about 225 kilograms, he said, compared with less than 100 kilograms before.
The robots will be used in Brampton or elsewhere until there is no value left in them, Mr. Ewasyshyn said.
"They will make very nice boat anchors," he said.
New models unveiled
These two rear-wheel-drive cars, along with seven other new vehicles being introduced by the Chrysler group in 2004, are critical to improving the auto maker's market share.
DODGE MAGNUM STATION WAGON
Target: Mid-sized car market
Starting price: $27,000
Top end: $35,000
Performance: 5.7-litre HEMI V-8 engine; rear-wheel drive
Amenities: Heated leather seats; competition gauges; racing-style milled aluminum pedals
The company pitch: "The new shape of American muscle."
CHRYSLER 300C SEDAN
Target: Mid-sized car market
Starting price: $29,000
Top end: $42,000
Performance: 5.7-litre HEMI V-8 engine; rear-wheel drive
Amenities: Tortoise shell accents on steering wheel rim, shifter knob and door pulls; leather-wrapped steering wheel
The company pitch: "A dramatic new design direction for Chrysler."
