AUBURN HILLS, MI – Manufacturing operations at the Chrysler Group’s Toledo (Ohio) North Assembly Plant will be expanded to include a third work shift beginning in the third quarter of 2006. The new shift will add approximately 750 jobs to the facility. The addition of the third-shift operations coincides with the all-new Dodge Nitro production. The majority of the jobs will be filled with current Chrysler Group employees who will be called back from layoff.

In November, Chrysler Group announced that it would invest $600 million at Toledo North, giving the plant the flexibility to add Dodge Nitro assembly to the line that has been producing the Jeep Liberty since 2001. Those investments also added more than 160,000 square feet of floor space, new equipment (including more than 150 new robots), new conveyors, as well as important new processes that will contribute to the plant’s productivity and quality.

The 2.10 million square-foot Toledo North Assembly Plant occupies 200 acres and has more than 2,700 employees. Groundbreaking of Toledo North began in fall 1997. Production of Jeep Liberty launched Apr. 2001. Next door, DaimlerChrysler’s all-new Toledo Supplier Assembly Plant, will begin building an all-new Jeep Wrangler in summer 2006. The new plant will be operated by the Chrysler Group and three supplier partners: Magna International, Kuka Group, and Hyundai Mobis, who will manage unprecedented levels of the manufacturing operation. This ‘supplier park’ frees Chrysler Group capital to be invested in new product development.