DETROIT SHOW: Chrysler whittles 2008 Ram inventories to a month supply

Chrysler LLC has reduced its 2008 Dodge Ram inventory to about one month’s supply, or 7,000 units, said Steven Landry, executive vice president of North American sales and marketing, global parts and service.

Still, inventories for the older 2008 model year remain higher than what the automaker typically would expect nearly four months after a new model year is introduced. The 2009 Ram was introduced in September.

Customer incentives averaging $7,000 in October, November and December helped move much of the remaining 2008 Ram inventory, Landry said in an interview Monday with the Post-Dispatch at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

The redesigned 2009 Dodge Ram 1500, which is made by workers at Chrysler’s Fenton plant, went into production in September. At the time, analysts worried that the glut of 2008 models would cannibalize the new model year’s sales.

Ideally, vehicles from the previous model year are sold out 90 days after the launch of the new model, Landry said, so by those standards, the 2008 Ram inventory should have been cleared by mid-December. But this is not an ideal sales environment, Landry added.