GM to shutter Saab engine plant, develop up to four new Opels?
General Motors is closing ailing Saab's engine plant in Soedertaelje, Sweden. According to AutomobilWoche, GM hopes to restructure the company's powertrain assembly practices in the region. To that end, roughly two-thirds of the 60,000 engines Saab produces will begin originating in Kaiserslautern, Germany.
In other news, in an interview with GM vice chair Bob Lutz, the automaker is considering up to four new Opel models. One such vehicle, a sub-Antara (read: Saturn Vue) crossover will be released by 2007, and that the plant is expected to be assembled in a low-cost plant, likely in Mexico, Thailand, or India. No word on whether it will come to the U.S. yet, but with the growing 'Opelization' of Saturn and a global target of 200,000 units, it would appear that anything is possible.
[Source: AFX News Limited via Forbes]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ebm14 6:56PM (5/21/2006)
No thanks, I will pass on a Mexican made Opel. Why don't they prove that Americans are more capable of building European cars as are the Japanese capable of showing U.S. consumers that American-made Japanese cars are of good quality?
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Nudge 7:33PM (5/21/2006)
No 1 it has to do with cost. As far as I know no one makes a small SUV in the states. The reasons is because it is expensive to build cars in the US and small cars cannot be sold for much. I beleive the Saturn Aura is supposed to be "European" car.
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tilley 9:28PM (5/21/2006)
Just kill Saab once and for all GM. Your slow torture of the brand has gone much too far. I am now thoroughly embarassed to mention to anyone that I was once an extreme Saab fanatic. Some may come to the brand, but you are bleeding many others....that equals status quo rather than building and growing.
Svenska Aeroplan Akti Bolaget RIP.
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a paul 9:38PM (5/21/2006)
saab is dead. long live saab. no seriously, in the early ninties husquavarna motorcycles were made in sweeden, than the company was sold to cagiva and production was moved to italy (do you see the parralle so far). any way former engineers from husquavarna started a new motorcycle company called husaberg. husabergs are fantastic high-tech dirtbikes loaded with cutting edge technology and build quality as good as or better than husquavarna. husaberg was eventuly purchased by ktm motorcycles of austria, but they still do most of thier constuction in sweeden.
all the saab engineers and others displaced by GM should start a simmilar new company in sweeden and build a new non saab that is more saab than any thing GM could ever build!
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steve brill 10:25PM (5/21/2006)
I don't normally read this 'what's your opinion' crap because the people with the opinions are idiots. Just had to say, though, that this guy 'Paul',above, proved my point. In a paragraph, he managed to mis-spell 4 words, including 'their'. I concluded that English is not his first language. Good heavens, man, get your self a dictionary!!
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gbh 10:35PM (5/21/2006)
Exactly Paul. The engineers should all go over to Koenigsegg and put together a killer minimalist supercar in the 50-60K range.
Ford is not much better in this regard than GM. Nothing wrong with aquiring 'halo' brands like Jag, Volvo, Saab, Land Rover, etc. Use their tech and engineers to work around the internal political clusterfux that have killed the domestic auto industry.
But don't try to turn these brands into mass-market players, it just doesn't work. Those brands were always were niche players. Oh well, lousy management kills again.
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David L Johnson 11:29PM (5/21/2006)
I lived in Germany for 10 years, I saw the opels every where, my wifes uncle owned one and I drove it on many occation. The Opel is built with the same quality as the BMW and an Audi. The car is quiet,comfortable and handles like a dream.
In Germany it is more car for the Euro and that is why so many people own one.
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Mal Fuller 10:36AM (5/22/2006)
Are they going to just abandon the former factory building, leaving behind a huge blight? That's what they've done in Detroit, Flint and elsewhere!
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Hmmm 9:15PM (5/22/2006)
Okay, if I was to accept the loss of SAAB I would like to see all the top GM executives go out with SAAB. SAAB has great potential, but the greedy and backward thinking US GM execs only see short and long term money in their pockets from US brands they can control. Sad, but I bet it is true!
Renault, buy SAAB now and I'll buy more than one of your version of SAABs!!!!!!
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