Chrysler to Close West Coast Design Center
The fact that the announcement showed up at 6:00 on a Friday evening says it all. Chrysler is closing its Pacifica Advanced Product Design Center in Carlsbad, California and it wanted the fewest number of people possible to notice.
According to the release, Chrysler is “…leveraging resources worldwide, forming new joint ventures and alliances and consolidating operations in order to better achieve global balance and manage fixed costs. As such, we are closing the Pacifica Advance Product Design Center, consolidating the Advance Design function in Auburn Hills...
Advance Design remains an integral part of our future design efforts, led by Trevor Creed, Senior Vice President -- Design.”
Almost every major manufacturer has a West Coast design studio. The satellite studios not only draw on the Southern California car culture, they also attract designers who wouldn’t otherwise consider a career job in Detroit. Not having such a setup certainly isn’t the end of cutting edge design at Chrysler, but it sure isn’t going to help.
- Permalink | Comments (5)
- Posted by: Ed Hellwig March 7, 2008, 7:37 PM
- Categories: Auto Industry, Chrysler, Trends
"We've found that it's better to let employees go on a Friday. There's less chance of an 'incident'."
Chrysler has designs they need to use. M80, Rampage, Hornet, please build these cars now.
obviously decisions are now being made purely by "non-car" bean counters.
In 10 years there will be no such thing as an American company.
Seriously, where is the Dodge Hornet? It's long overdue.