But it had been no secret this year that Chrysler was overloaded with unsold vehicles.
After dismal spring sales, showrooms nationwide are bulging with unsold vehicles.
Japanese companies like Toyota and Honda keep even smaller supplies of unsold vehicles on hand.
During last year's first quarter, dealers were liquidating inventories of unsold vehicles, which meant weak factory sales and poor financial results.
Hanomag were badly hurt by the drop in trade in 1929 and built a large stock of unsold vehicles.
But last Wednesday, Chrysler said it would shut the plant this week, because too many unsold vehicles had accumulated on dealers' lots.
There are currently stockpiles of 2 million unsold vehicles.
And the auto inventory figures did not jibe with the reports from the industry on unsold vehicles.
Inventory of unsold vehicles began to build up and production had to be slowed down.
On the other hand, the company has a large inventory of unsold vehicles, a concern to some analysts.