Driving Sports

One week after finalizing its merger with Fiat, Chrysler announced today that it will resume volume production of vehicles with the start up of seven of its North American assembly plants the week of June 29, 2009. This is to be expected, and it's a good thing to put Chrysler's people back to work.

As part of a phased production ramp-up, the following assembly plants are scheduled to resume production at the end of the month:

• Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (Sterling Heights, MI) – Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger
• Warren Truck Assembly Plant (Warren, MI) – Dodge Ram and Dodge Dakota
• St. Louis North Assembly Plant (Fenton, MO) – Dodge Ram
• Toledo Supplier Park (Toledo, OH) – Jeep® Wrangler and Jeep Wrangler Unlimited
• Brampton Assembly Plant (Brampton, Ontario, Canada) – Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger and Challenger
• Windsor Assembly Plant (Windsor, Ontario, Canada ) – Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan
• Toluca Assembly Plant (Toluca, Mexico) – Dodge Journey and Chrysler PT Cruiser

They'll probably take some heat for ramping up production at the Mexican plant (and maybe even the Canadian plants) while other U.S. assembly lines sit idle, but the Journey and PT Cruiser are mainstays of Chrysler's business right now.

Chrysler’s Conner Avenue Assembly Plant, which builds the Dodge Viper, resumed production on June 15.

Whatever you think of Chrysler, we've all got skin in the game now, and even if you don't plan to buy one, we can all at least be happy that they're building cars and have a plan to stay in business.