Magna Steyr aims to be first supplier to build complete cars

Magna Steyr, the engineering unit of Canada's Magna International Inc., would like to become the first supplier in North America to land a contract building complete vehicles for the automakers. The idea of contracting out vehicle production is already in place in Europe, and ASC, a Southgate, MI-based company, makes a good living providing crucial components and some assembly to automakers, but this would mark the first time a supplier would be responsible for the entire production of a vehicle in North America. Magna Steyr is poised to take advantage of Ford's and GM's fiscal woes by positioning itself as a viable, less expensive production alternative to traditional auto plants, although industry analysts believe that capacity for these supplier-owned plants would be small, somewhere around 15,000 to 50,000 vehicles annually.