Sterling Heights Assembly

Coordinates: 42°34′12″N 83°01′52″W / 42.570°N 83.031°W / 42.570; -83.031 Sterling Heights Assembly, or Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP), is an automobile manufacturing factory in Sterling Heights, Michigan currently operated by Chrysler Group LLC. The factory was opened by Chrysler under its Missile Division in 1953 to produce missiles. The nearby Sterling Stamping opened in 1965. Subsequent to its first plant in the continental United States — Volkswagen Westmoreland Assembly Plant in Pennsylvania — Volkswagen converted the plant for automobile production in 1980, but never manufactured automobiles there, instead selling the plant back to Chrysler in 1983.

After the plant was modernized in 2006, the assembly line and tooling for the outgoing Stratus and Sebring were sold to OAO GAZ and shipped to that company's factory in Nizhny Novgorod in Russia. GAZ continued to produce the Stratus under license there through 2010, marketed as the Volga Siber.[1]

On May 6, 2009 it was announced that the Sterling Heights Assembly plant would close by December 2010[2] with the adjacent stamping plant to remain open however the decision of the Chrysler board to make the new 200 model allowed it to bring new life into the plant and saved it from being closed .

In 2010 Chrysler purchased the plant from Old Carco LLC for USD$20 million. The plant will retain its current 1,200 employees.[3] Chrysler will break ground on a new paint shop at the plant on June 21, 2011. This comes after an announcement of an 850 million dollar investment in October 2010.[4]

When the Alfa Romeo Giulietta based Chrysler 200 was cancelled in December 2016, FCA announced that the Sterling Heights facility would receive a $1.49 billion investment to retool so it can build the next-generation Ram 1500 pickup, which will be transferred from the Warren Truck Assembly so that it can build the all-new, full size Jeep Wagoneer with a planned launch in 2018.[5]

Products Made

Former products

External References

Sterling Heights Assembly history

References

List of Chrysler factories

  1. ↑ "Sterling Heights assembly line to be shipped to Russia". Detroit News. Retrieved April 14, 2006.
  2. ↑ http://www.canadiandriver.com/2009/05/06/chrysler-to-close-five-plants-in-us.htm
  3. ↑ "Chrysler purchases mid-size sedan plant from bankrupt Old Carco". leftlanenews. Retrieved 28 July 2010.
  4. ↑ "Groundbreaking for new Sterling Heights paint shop". allpar. Retrieved 16 June 2011.
  5. ↑ Sterling Heights survives
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