Chrysler's Dundee engine plant to get $40 million investment

Chrysler is to invest $40 million to help production at its engine plant in Dundee.

Chrysler Group LLC said today it will invest $52 million in two Michigan plants, including more than $40 million at its Dundee Engine Plant, to increase production of one of the company's four-cylinder engines. 

The investment won't bring new jobs to Dundee, where Chrysler currently employs 714 people, but it will bring nearly 300 new jobs to the company's plant in Trenton in southeast Michigan.

The Dundee plant in Monroe County is currently Chrysler's only plant in North American building four-cylinder engines, but that will change with the investment.

Chrysler said it will spent $11.5 million to add an assembly line for the four-cylinder Tigershark engine at Trenton North. That plant builds only the V-6 Pentastar engine that powers the Toledo-made Jeep Wrangler and many other vehicles. 

In Dundee, $40.5 million will go toward converting an assembly line to machine crankshafts, cylinder heads and engine blocks to support Tigershark production at Trenton. Chrysler said Dundee will continue producing the 1.4-liter, 2.0-liter, and 2.4-liter engines.

Production on both new lines is expected to begin by the end of September. 

"With the growing demand for our products, we are constantly evaluating how to best meet powertrain production requirements," Brian Harlow, Chrysler vice president and head of Powertrain Manufacturing said in a statement.

"In this case, we are fortunate that we had an existing facility that could accommodate the additional capacity needs for Tigershark and one that has the know-how to support that additional production."