Bucking the trend - factory museum closes its doors
On December 18, 2016, the Walter P. Chrysler Museum (address: One Chrysler Drive, Auburn Hills, MI 48326-2778 USA) will close its doors for good, according to information available. Instead of old cars, the modern building will now be occupied by office workers.
The museum did not deliver the expected figures, which was certainly also due to the fact that it had hardly been advertised recently. The museum was opened in 1999, when Chrysler was still part of Mercedes-Benz. In 2012, now part of the FCA Group, the now loss-making museum was closed. While the operation was initially profitable, the books had to be closed in the years 2010 to 2012 with considerable losses.
Since the closure, the museum has only been open sporadically, with public weekends made possible by Chrysler employees working on a voluntary basis. Since June of this year, just 4300 visitors have been to the museum on the few days it has been open. So now the museum is to close, even though it had 90,000 visitors in its best years (with its own website).
Apparently, tradition is not equally important to all brands. While some are opening new museums or renovating their old meeting places, others are closing their facilities, which is probably a sign that tradition is not so important to them.
However, when asked by Hemmings, Chrysler said that it would continue to display the old vehicles at internal and external events at the Chrysler Technology Center and other meeting places.
We think it is a shame that no other solution could be found, especially as many volunteers would have liked to help give the museum a longer life. After all, there are many exciting classics among the Chrysler automobiles that are unfortunately rarely seen ...
