Saleen Troy Assembly

While out at lunch today, I spotted a sign reading "Open House" in front of a building that hasn't had a sign on it since it was a Stanley Garage Door factory some time back in the late 90s. This wouldn't have raised an eye, but I knew what was inside. The owners have a habit of displaying their wares in the large front window, and you can only see so many S7s before you figure out that the old garage door plant is the midwest base for Saleen.

I swooped back to work, begged my boss for the afternoon off, and hightailed it out to the daycare to grab the kids - you only get so many shots at a racecar factory, and we weren't missing this one.

Saleen's Troy, MI assembly plant is micro-OEM facility. If you've been in a "regular" auto assembly plant, this is the Matchbox (or is it HotWheels?) version. Chasses come in one end, supplied by Ford, and are processed on two separate assembly lines. The main line is for Mustang conversions. That is too limited a word, the cars are stripped when they arrive and given new VINs indicating Saleen as the OEM. The parts that are stripped off the cars are graded for quality and shipped to a variety of recycling shops around the US that get the parts to owners and shops that need them for repairs. They are not sold as new. The chasses are painted if a Saleen color is selected, then go through what the rest of the OEMs call "final assembly". About 5 cars a day process through the Mustang line, starting with interior extraction and working through undercarriage, suspension, engine work, interior insertion, and final trim. Final trim frequently includes replacing the bonnet.

The paint line is a work in and of itself. Saleen has the expertise and equipment in-house to produce a fully baked factory primer/color/clear process and does so on all painted vehicles. They recently received the contract to paint the 08 Dodge Viper. Working with the RIM material for the Viper parts requires a unique buck assembly to protect the shape of the parts during the bake cycle. Each group of trims is painted as a body so that all parts will match exactly when the car is assembled. This commission comes on the heels of the Ford GT, a car fully painted and assembled at Saleen, short of the drivetrain insertion.

The second line in the plant processes vehicles delivered from Ford that will keep their Ford VINs. These vehicles receive factory-certified Saleen powertrain upgrades, such as the supercharger on the Ford F150 Harley Davidson. Up to 15 trucks can process each day, meaning a car carrier is showing up to unload and pick up about 8 times a week. The supercharger was designed out of Saleen's California headquarters, like most of Saleen's offerings. Troy Assembly includes several test cells for flowbenching and a brand new Dynojet for powertrain validation. If you're going to claim 400 horsies, you better be able to show you've got them. One of the modified trucks was strapped down during our visit, and plunked down a very respectable 390hp and 440ft-lbs at the wheels.

Saleen are pretty much the only OEM that is expanding in MI. The facility opened to build the Ford GT, as Dearborn wanted it done close to home, and Saleen have a very good relationship with them. An engine plant is on the drawing board - plans to bring 281s in from Ford for stroking out to full 302 spec are on the table. This will further expand not only Saleen's capabilities for modifying Fords, but the ability to produce very specific crate motors. A possible retro roadster project is also on the table, as witnessed from the assorted body and frame bucks observed around the plant.

I hope to secure a future tour that can include my camera. It's a great treat to visit an assembly shop that isn't beating me over the head over a paint defect for once. At Saleen, it didn't appear to be an issue.

I need an SUV to get over this writer's block. I heard the new Touareg's a great off-roader!

Writing new car reviews is freakin' tough. I don't know why I thought it would be simple. I've spent upward of 25 hours so far this week attempting to summarize 10 hours of driving a 2008 Touareg.

 

How people do this for a living, day in and day out, I don't know. According to a source of mine, Jim Mateja (recently retired from The Chicago Tribune) had access to several hundred press cars last year; this review of the 2008 TT is representative of his general style. The facts are jammed in wherever they fit amongst copy that reads like a hypothetical conversation between the writer and a neighbor.

 

"Oooh, what have you got there, Jim?"

"Well, this here's the new..."

 

Such pedestrian prose makes the opposite end of the spectrum (for example, the highly-controversial Dan Neil ) seem positively poetic, although that's an unfair comparison, because I don't generally enjoy poetry.

 

Style and talent in this industry run the gamut, and I'm positive I have a niche here that I can't yet define, much less carve out. I'm struggling to grasp the words that suit this vehicle. I need to describe the good elements of my experience, of which there are many, and force myself to evaluate the not-so-good from another perspective, because they are tainted by my own biases. I thought that my brief time with the car was enough to accomplish this, only to be later surprised and dismayed that the fleet management company retrieved it earlier than expected. And I allowed myself until tomorrow to wrap it all up.

 

Wish me luck. I'll post a link when the review goes live.

"...Foregoing being the king." --Geely media kit

Wes and I talked about China last night, an amateur international relations conference from the booth of a Milwaukee McDonald's.

 

I mentioned I read an article about a wildlife preserve in China that allows googly-eyed Westerners the opportunity to hug panda bears for a hefty fee. For at least as long as I have known Wes, he has wanted to go to China to observe and write about Chinese auto manufacturing, such as Geely or Chery. My motives are clearly much more superficial.

 

I asked Wes if he thinks the recent news stories about tainted Chinese-made products would hurt the chances of auto manufacturers. I'm convinced they're doomed before they even start; after all, I saw Geely's exhibit at NAIAS in January. I collected their press materials with the intention of making a kind of "what not to do" collage. I examined the display cars with fake disc brakes bolted over the drums, paint overspray peeling from rubber gaskets, and interior upholstery that closely resembled dollar-store terry cloth dish towels. If they don't have the good sense to, at the very least, hire a North American PR firm to review their press materials to fix errors and smooth over goofy translations before distribution, I don't think Chinese auto manufacturers stand a chance.

 

Wes disagrees. In the wake of the Chinese tire nightmare, his news post on The Car Lounge delved into the background of Chinese manufacturing: why the culture enforces such shoddy quality and why he thinks that dynamic will change. (Rather than paraphrase him, I'll rather post the link when I'm not blogging from work.) He's nothing if not thorough, that man. And since he's done far more research on the subject than I have, and these are the sort of conversations take place in our non-working hours, I'm looking forward to watching it play out. Multiple sources (manufacturers and analysts) estimate Chinese cars could land here as soon as two years from now.

 

He's still planning to visit an auto plant in China someday. I finally conceded that I'd like to accompany him, as long as I get to visit the pandas.

 

VW's location question

We heard that VW is considering leaving MI for greener pastures out east.

This is intriguing for a few reasons. Moving to the coasts would put VW smack into the centers of population where their cars sell best. And Germans do love to fit in. This would fit well with a Volkswagen strategy of staying in the US as a niche player without any aspirations of true mass-market participation. If that is what VW are going to be about, it's not such a bad idea to move. It's not good for the bubble buyer, who will now know for a fact that VW is not interested in them, but it may result in a more refined VW product line that addresses their unique position in the US marketplace. Unfortunately, this will hamper Audi's gains in the luxury market.

If VW want to pursue their mass market strategy that is serving them well in the rest of the world, staying in the D is a better (non)move. Nowhere in the US is the American auto consumer more king that in Detroit. If VW is to truly understand what American drivers want, they will do best to put their collective ears to the ground in the heartland and mix product accordingly. They've had 50-plus years to get it right, what's a few more? I find it interesting that most of the new VW owners I know now (MkV and PQ46/B6 platforms) are people who skipped the past 20 years of VW. They are choosing the VW cars over Japanese cars. This means VW is starting to get the mass market right, regardless of what the noisy enthusiast crowd claims. Same goes for Audi.

This could all be a moot discussion - chatter indicates that some of the significant tax breaks VW received during the move to Auburn Hills require a few more years of residence to fully pay off. The cost of moving a company is not small - even if 25% of the staff transfer (an optimistic estimate based on other corporate moves), moving costs and COLAs add up. Add in the edifice complex that invariably results in a fancy new building and you've got a one-time hit that could wipe out profits for the next five years (assuming they make any). The same attrition could be achieved by cleaning house at Auburn Hills and picking and choosing from the abundance of ex-Ford, GM, and Chrysler staff that are currently overwhelming the local economy.

A third possibility is Chicago. I doubt it's being considered, but it would give VW exposure to both the coveted Euro-friendly crowd that populate the large cities of the coasts, along with maintaining access to the heartland. While staying in the D is a cheap no-brainer, a move just a bit west would offer the best of both worlds and give the Germans a bit more time to decide whether they're going to pull out entirely or stick around for another 50 years.

The time is coming. I must obtain an Illinois driver's license. Really, I should have done it months ago, but since my Vermont license expires next month, I can no longer feign ignorance.

 

It brings a sense of finality to my life. Funny how that works--it's as if once a government-issued photo ID says I live here, I actually do live here. Before that, it seemed kind of haphazard, like I woke up one day and found myself on the outskirts of Chicago (which isn't too far from the truth).

 

I just found out, though, that I have to surrender my Vermont license at the time the Illinois license is issued. I don't want to surrender it. I want to keep it. I like having a souvenir I carry in my wallet. I enjoy the looks and comments I get from liquor store clerks--"Oooh, what's it like there?"--and I don't see why they can't just snap it in half and hand it back to me, so I can frame it or something.

 

I am kind of a pack rat. I do get way too attached to everyday inanimate objects.

 

I still have my Massachusetts license, although it expired long ago. I was supposed to surrender it to the State of Vermont that September day I took an afternoon off from work, headed down the lakefront to the Burlington DMV, applied for my LB6ZGTI vanity plates, sat for a new photo, and lied about my weight. The reason I didn't hand it over? The clerk, a cute young man about my age, came out to the parking lot to verify my VIN, stopped short when he saw my GTI, and spent the next few minutes smiling at me and asking questions about the car. Government-mandated procedure was a mere suggestion at that point. Like the bumper stickers say, ILOVERMONT.

 

 

 

No show

Around 15 April, the thoughts of auto enthusiasts in America turn to two things: What to spend the tax refund on, and where to show it off.

My family can only survive so many car shows each year, so I get out the calendar and try to pick and choose early on. I confess that while I do like attending big ones, the smaller, more focused ones offer better chances at bringing home the hardware. Yes, I'm competitive about my car. I admit it. More trophies is better. As I expected to run the BABE 2007 in May, I cut the show schedule a little trimmer than I normally would. One of the perks of the planned BABE event was going to be spending a week driving cross-country with my co-host here at Vanity Plate Blog, something we were both looking forward to doing, and to writing about. I selected my hometown show - Motorstadt, the Woodward Dream Cruise, and the Michigan Bug-Out. The most glaring omission from my schedule was the largest midwest show for Volkswagens - Midwest Treffen.

Now that Treffen is on the horizon, I'm rethinking my decision. I can't change it due to other plans, but I'm regretting writing it off of the calendar so quickly. The show is a huge conflict for me - it is invariably scheduled for the weekend of the Dream Cruise, popular voting produces some interesting results, and Chicago is an expensive place to get a room. The Dream Cruise (watch for coverage this week as I hit Woodward) is the single largest automotive event in the United States, and when you live in the Detroit area, impossible to avoid. So you cave and enjoy it. You revel in the exhaust fumes, the ornate bodywork, and torque that, were Woodward a one-way street, might affect the rotation of the earth. With at least one budding gear-head building LEGO cars at home, it's a crime to leave town for this amazing event. And while you're supposed to go to shows for fun, my competitive streak really got the best of me last year when the first place vote in my class went to a stock car with wood-grain shelf liner stuck to its rocker panels. I swore I would never go back. It was a pretty sucky weekend - I got rained on on Saturday at the Cruise, drove like a banshee to Chicago that evening to stay in a $150 Hampton (good grief!), got displaced by the shelf liner, and returned home, rock-chipped and empty-handed, to hear that the weather improved on Sunday and there were "Ferraris EVERYWHERE, Mommy!". Staying home this year felt right, way back in April.

So why, in the face of three Plymouth GTXs, hundreds of Chevelle SuperSports, half the mobile Model Ts, and a wind-up Type 1 with a hydraulic body, do I regret staying home this year? Because Cherise missed out on the BABE ralley, and I missed out on her company. I'd be enjoying it this coming weekend at Treffen, while we planned and plotted for a bigger, better Vanity Plate Blog. This year's Treffen would have been what car shows are supposed to be about - hanging out with friends, looking at cars, enjoying yourself. My reasons for not going were pretty selfish, and here I go again, selfish in my reasons for wanting to go.

Instead of making the trek to Chicago, I'll be visiting the Seiberling estate outside of Akron, OH, built as home to the founder of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. We're throwing in a trip to the World of Rubber for some educational content. Not the car trip I wish I was making, but tyres count for something, right?