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Published Saturday, March 28, 2009 in Local

Honda minivans stockpiled at former auction property

By Jeff Bishop

The Times-Herald

When you're an automobile manufacturing plant and people stop buying your cars, where do you put them all?

As it turns out, you put them at the Sharpsburg-McCollum Road exit in Coweta County.

Coweta-to-Atlanta commuters can't help but notice the sea of new minivans that drifted in like a tide over the past several weeks at a former auction site on the eastern side of I-85, exit 51.

Those vans are not going to be auctioned off by Adesa Auctions. The lot is being used as more of an open-air storage unit for the new vehicles, Adesa representatives said.

The company says it gets calls "every day" regarding the vans, with the local people wondering when the auction will be. But the vans -- manufactured in an Alabama Honda plant -- are just awaiting better days, as the supply chain backs up due to slacking consumer demand.

Honda Manufacturing of Alabama recently announced plans to cut production at its Alabama facility to line up with the drop in sales of its light truck models.

U.S. sales of Alabama-made autos took a nosedive in February, as all eight models built in the state posted double-digit slides from a year ago, the automakers announced recently. Combined, sales of all state-built models fell 44 percent last month from a year ago.

The three vehicles built by Mercedes-Benz in Vance, Ala., had the steepest drops, followed by Honda, which assembles three models in Lincoln, Ala.

U.S. sales sank during February for all three vehicles Honda builds in Alabama.

The Japanese automaker sold 6,692 Odyssey minivans last month, a 43 percent drop from 11,690 sold in February 2008. For the year to date, Honda has sold 12,091 Odysseys, trailing last year by 41 percent.

Sales of the Pilot sports utility vehicle posted a decline of 48 percent, from 12,881 sold in the year-ago period to 6,678 sold last month. So far this year, 13,357 Pilots have been sold, lagging behind last year's mark by 37 percent.

It was also a rough month for the Ridgeline pickup, which Honda recently began building in Alabama.

February sales of the pickup totaled 1,106, a 69 percent fall from the 3,532 sold in February 2008. For the year to date, Honda has sold 2,307 Ridgelines, a 60 percent decline from this point last year.

Since Honda started production in Alabama seven years ago, the company has made adjustments -- both increases and decreases -- based on customer demand, according to a recent news release.

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