Chrysler planning to slash models, consolidate dealers

SAN FRANCISCO -- Chrysler is accelerating a plan to eliminate slow-selling models and consolidate dealers, Chrysler President Jim Press said Friday.

Chrysler is accelerating a plan to eliminate slow-selling models and consolidate dealers, Chrysler President Jim Press said Friday.

He also hinted at a conference here during a national dealers convention that Chrysler might take on Toyota's youthful Scion brand with a van aimed at young buyers.

Under an accelerated reorganization plan called Project Genesis, "We're going to build fewer products that serve the same (market)," Press said.

He didn't list models to be axed, but used the company's nearly identical Dodge and Chrysler minivans as an example of duplicative models that could be done as a single model to save marketing and development costs. He didn't say which brand might sell the resulting van.

The automaker, 80.1%-owned by private investment company Cerberus Capital Management, is trying to streamline operations to work its way back to consistent profits.

Chrysler previously has said it will eliminate slow sellers such as the Dodge Magnum sport wagon, Chrysler Pacifica crossover SUV and Chrysler PT Cruiser convertible.

Other Chrysler product overlaps that might invite the ax:

• Jeep Compass and Patriot and Dodge Caliber. They use similar hardware and are built together at the same Belvidere, Ill., plant.

Caliber outsells the two Jeeps combined. Patriot is the stronger of the two Jeeps. (And if the two Jeeps are merged, the name could be, too: Compatriot.)

• Dodge Nitro and Jeep Liberty. Similar drivetrain hardware and platforms, and both are built at Toldeo, Ohio, the long-time manufacturing home to Jeep. Nitro's a little bigger and not made for the serious off-roading that Liberty can handle. Dodge sells about 7,500 Nitros a month; Jeep, about 10,000 Liberties.

• Dodge Durango and Chrysler Aspen. Both are made at Newark, Del. Aspen's just a fancy version of Durango, and Durango outsold Aspen almost two-to-one last year.

But Durango sales last year had collapsed from a year earlier and Aspen sales helped make up the difference and keep the factory running. And that's why models can't be summarily discontinued. Sometimes they sell just well enough to mean the difference between profit and loss, between a single shift or two shifts at a factory.

Press said the company spent $200 million to launch the latest versions of its Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country vans last year. Press said that could be halved if there were a single version of the van to market.

Though the vans are mechanically identical, it cost money to design different trim and styling features to differentiate them. Press said that savings from eliminating duplicate development could help pay for a youth-oriented van aimed at buyers who favor Toyota's Scion division. Press, considered one of the star executives of the auto industry, joined Chrysler after years at Toyota.

Regardless of how many models it eventually sells, Chrysler will try to sell them from fewer dealerships, many or all of which will sell everything it offers: Jeep, Dodge and Chrysler brands.

In a question-and-answer session Friday at the J.D. Power and Associates Automotive Roundtable here, Press said, "We don't know how many models we're going to have. Nobody knows that." He spanked the press for speculating and said "the media numbers are all hypothetical and none of them are actual, and they're all guesses."

He also insisted that the consolidations aren't prelude to dismantling the company. Such talk "is all hogwash," he said. "Our owners have never said anything other than build a great American icon. There's no plan to take it apart."