toledoblade.com --

Toledoan Bob Laucks isn’t saddened by the prospect of inspecting his final Jeep Wrangler this week, a move that will help signal the end of the nation’s longest-running auto plant.

Instead, the 29½-year Toledo Jeep veteran is looking forward to moving to the $900 million multifactory complex that will replace the Stickney Avenue plant and Jeep Parkway factory.

The last of nearly 970,000 Wranglers made since the icon was last redesigned in 1997 was built at Parkway yesterday, will be painted red there today, and will be finished tomorrow at Stickney, where Mr. Laucks works.

Meanwhile, production of the redesigned Wrangler begins with four-door Unlimited models on July 17 after Mr. Laucks and others return from Toledo Jeep’s traditional two-week summer shutdown. The first finished vehicle is to be done July 24.

“I worked my new job over there for a couple of days — it’s exciting,” Mr. Laucks told The Blade yesterday.

He predicted the latest incarnation of the World War II icon will “sell a lot better.”

DaimlerChrysler AG is winding down production of the 2006 Wrangler this week at Stickney and Parkway. Roughly 11 million vehicles have been built at Parkway in the last 96 years; it is the nation’s longest-running auto plant.

Chrysler did not allow The Blade to tour or take pictures this week inside the Parkway factory, where officials said some equipment was being removed after the last Wrangler body went down the line yesterday.

Parkway will be demolished, but Stickney will be used to ready parts for both the Wrangler and two vehicles, the Jeep Liberty and Dodge Nitro, being built in factories next door.

“It’s kind of the old and new, how they link together,” said Cynthia Sidoti, Chrysler’s plant manager at the complex, dubbed Toledo Supplier Park. Stickney has been used, in part, to inspect Libertys.

The new group of factories, part of which is run by suppliers in an arrangement unique to North America, has been able to stay on schedule despite a late change in the paint shop’s operator, Ms. Sidoti said.

Production of two-door Wranglers is to begin Aug. 28, and the complex will add a second shift Sept. 25, Ms. Sidoti said.

For Toledoan Cheryl Allen, who has worked at Toledo Jeep for 28 years, the next milestone will be learning what her next job will be.

She hopes to find out tomorrow.

“Change is good for growth,” Ms. Allen said.

Still, Mr. Laucks admitted he is saddened by the upcoming demolition of Parkway, where two of three smokestacks on the power house bear the name “Overland.”

Jeep Parkway was built, starting in 1910, for Willys-Overland Motor Co.

“I just hope they keep the smokestacks,” Mr. Laucks said. “It’s part of Toledo.”

Contact Julie M. McKinnon at: jmckinnon@theblade.com or 419-724-6087.

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