Am I the only one who finds this news slightly amusing? :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: The korean Daewoo cars will be Chevy's from next year. How's that for a "kill-story" ? :TU: http://www.gmdaewoo.co.uk/press/press_release.htm http://www.daewoo.dk/info/news_events/qanda.htm Man, am I glad to be a Buickguy ! Stig.
I don't get what the big deal is, GM bought Daewoo and is now shutting it down and replacing it with an already existing better selling brand. IT happens all the time in business. As far as I know they already assemble new buicks in China for the Asian and enropean markets (I think China mike owns one of these chinese buicks). If you consider international corporate buyouts a kill I guess it is kinda a kill story (if you squint real hard). uzzled: I am glad Chevy finally wised up and started opening up to more foreign markets (until now Mexico, Canada, and Japan were the only places to buy a chevy outside the US). Now if they just make this new cobalt better than a honda civic they can get their dominance back.
Hmmmm.... Geeto 67: Of course it is good whenever a major car brand (or any business for that matter) expands as an investment in the future. No doubt about that !!! Chevrolet as a car-brand is today being sold in 70 different countries. This new Daewoo-version will be built in Korea at the GM-Daewoo plant (former Daewoo), and sold in most of Europe by 2005. It will still be a Daewoo, only does it say "Chevrolet" on the outside. I still think it's kinda funny though, that if You buy a new Daewoo now (in the UK), then You can trade it in for a new Chevy next year. Free of charge. Maybe my sense of humor goes to far (daewoo chevelle, daewoo corvette).... o No: .....and I didn't know they make Buick's in China (for the European market!?). Stig.
I admit the exchange program is kinda funny, but also very interesting. While the other companies have been expirmenting with the new look of cars people buy, GM has been expirmenting with a lot of new ways in which people buy cars. Saturn now has a 30 day return policy, where you can bring any saturn back within 30 days after buying it and exchange it for a new one (there are limits). IT also has had a new thing where you can test drive the car for 24 hours before buying. Daewoo never made rebadged chevy's, they had their own cars and since shuttign down I understand the last cars have basically been efforts to clean out the parts bins, and their parts supply network has collapsed. GM bought Daewoo so that they could just insert themselves into daewoo's shoes, basically they bought a network of dealers. It is funny to think about a daewoo plant assembling something like the impala or the cobalt or the new camaro (in 07) (corvettes have their own plant in bowling green KY and will never be assembeld outside the US), but then again opel has been doing that for years with some of it's cars. besides GM's divisions are setup these days so that the same car be built anywhere. Buick has been building and selling in china for a short while now. The last thing I read is that they were pending EU certfication to begin selling the cars in Europe. I don't know whether that has come true yet or not but presumably you should be seeing buicks in europe soon. If you do a search through china mike's posts he posted a picture of himself with his new buick in china (the emblems are even in chinese - it blows my mind). here is a pic of Mike's Buick: and here is the website of shanghi GM: http://www.shanghaigm.com/
