'No pull-our, says Guillaume
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• Herve Guillaume, Renault Truck Industries' new chairman, is insistent that the Dunstable company's French parent is not about to give it the chop. "We are not considering at all today the pull-out situation," he says.
Guillatune claims that RTI's losses have been trimmed from a massive 35% of turnover just five years ago to a more modest 7% now. "If we got back into profit in 1988 it would be pretty good . . ." Losses at the moment, with annual sales of some 5,000 vehicles, are around £10 million.
Guillaume also insists that there are no immediate plans to phase out the Dodge name. The Dodge name is tied in with the Dodge vehicles (50 series and 100 series) which he says still have a long way to go.
The Dunstable product is not about to be replaced by right-hand-drive versions of French models_ The market here and in the Englishspeaking export markets demands different vehicles, he says, and that justifies the retention of full engineering capacity at Dunstable.
More Renault parts will find their way into the British vehicles: "From a fantastic portfolio of parts, we will try to adapt the right parts to the right product — and eventually we will have the right cab," he says.