Production at the General Motors van plant in Baltimore ended for the year yesterday as new figures showed that combined sales of the Chevrolet Astro and GMC Safari were off 27 percent last month.
Astro sales, which account for the bulk of the production at the Broening Highway plant, were off 27.3 percent last month and are down 14.2 percent for the first 11 months of the year.
GM dealers sold only 740 Safari vans in the United States last month, nearly 39 percent fewer than November 2001. So far this year, Safari sales are down 27.1 percent.
Declining sales prompted GM to halt production at the plant yesterday and lay off about 1,000 workers. They are not scheduled to return until Jan. 13.
Under a normal production schedule, the plant would close Dec. 23 for the holidays and production would resume Jan. 2.
Of GM's 23 car and truck assembly plants in the United States, Baltimore is the only one that is to be closed next week.
The difficult times here come at a time when GM is working overtime at a number of other truck plants to keep up with consumer demand.
The company's production schedule for next week shows that truck assembly lines in Arlington, Texas; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Oklahoma City, Okla.; and Wentzville, Mo., will be working overtime.
"The demand for trucks has been very strong since the late 1990s," said Dan Flores, a GM spokesman. "Overtime has been very consistent at some plants for a couple of years."
Baltimore has been the exception, he said. "This market segment has softened over the last couple of years."
Brian Goebel, a spokesman for the plant, said the last vehicle rolled off the line yesterday afternoon and workers left a couple of hours before their shift ended.
He said workers assembled 75,560 vans this year, down from 82,264 last year.
Most analysts attribute the lackluster sales of the Astro and Safari to their age. "It's a very old product," said David E. Cole, president of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Unlike their competitors, the Astro and Safari have not undergone a major redesign since they were first produced, in 1984.
Despite the age of the vans, as well as that of the plant, which opened in 1935, Cole said workers in Baltimore caught the attention of GM executives in Detroit this year when they posted significant quality and plant efficiency improvements.
He said the workers have earned the right to be assigned a new product. "Baltimore is not home free," Cole said. "But my advice to those people in Baltimore is to be patient. Don't give up. The potential is fairly good that a new product could come there."
Flores said the plant is scheduled to produce the Astro and Safari until the summer of 2005. Beyond then, he said, the market will determine the future of the product.
"A lot can happen in three years," he said. "This is an intense marketplace, and things can change fast."