It has been a few years since the Chrysler group had a hot car -- let alone a hot sedan -- but its 300C model is roaring out of dealers' lots and has turned the Brampton, Ont., assembly plant into a seven-day-a-week operation.
Sales are surging so much that the auto maker -- part of DaimlerChrysler AG -- has asked members of the Canadian Auto Workers union to cut the standard two-week summer shutdown next month to a one-week holiday.
"It's all about having a hot product," said CAW president Buzz Hargrove, who added that the union is canvassing its members to determine whether enough will agree to take their holidays at some other time so the plant can operate for the extra week.
The vehicles so far are the Chrysler 300 and the 300C, the top-of-the-line version of the sedan that comes with a 5.7-litre engine bearing the Hemi trademark. They will be followed next month by a station wagon version called the Dodge Magnum. A Dodge sedan will arrive next spring and revive the name of the storied Charger muscle car of the the 1960s and 1970s.
The plant is running two shifts of six hours each on Sundays, a step up from the normal Saturday overtime, in addition to the regular Monday-to-Friday production.
The success of the new cars -- so far, at least -- validates the auto maker's decision to gamble $1.2-billion to differentiate itself from the competition in the mid-sized sedan market by shifting its flagship cars to rear-wheel drive from front-wheel drive.
The cars are crucial in a barrage of nine new or redesigned products the Chrysler group is introducing this year to try to halt a market share erosion that has gone on for several years. Pricing has been key, with the base 300 model starting at $29,995 in Canada and the loaded 300C at $42,995. The Magnum will start at $27,995 in Canada and $22,495 (U.S.) in the United States, which is the market for about 80 per cent of the cars that come out of the Brampton plant.
The success of the new sedans creates the company's first big mass-market product since the PT Cruiser in the late 1990s, said Michael Robinet, vice-president of forecast services for CSM Worldwide Inc. in Northville, Mich.
"There's a buzz around the 300C," Mr. Robinet said. "Chrysler has to take that buzz and parlay it to their other vehicles."
Gord Moors, who owns Varsity Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ltd. in Calgary, said he has already received 30 to 35 orders for the Dodge Magnum, even though the station wagons probably won't arrive on his lot until next month.
Americans have placed 30,000 orders for Magnums with the company's U.S. Dodge dealers, with another 68,000 orders for 300 models, the auto maker said.
Mr. Moors said he sold three 300C models on the Internet in one day. That's the car he's driving at the moment. "I take my daughter to soccer and I can't get out of the parking lot, there's three or four guys who want to ask me questions about the car."
The Brampton plant had been operating on three shifts a day until the auto maker's restructuring in 2001, when one shift was eliminated and about 1,000 workers laid off.
The success of the new vehicles means all those who were laid off, but didn't leave the company, have been rehired.
About 3,300 people on two shifts are turning out between 1,200 and 1,300 cars a day, which is still short of full production of about 1,900 vehicles a day, said Bob Chernecki, an assistant to Mr. Hargrove.
The union is pressing the company to add a third shift, but Chrysler group president Dieter Zetsche was quoted by industry publication Automotive News as saying it's too early to do that.
Mr. Robinet agreed, pointing out that there are several new vehicles from other manufacturers coming out later this year, such as the Ford Mustang. "It's not that the Mustang competes with the 300C," he said, "it's more that the buzz moves to another vehicle."
