GM Daewoo roots go back to the former Daewoo Group which went bankrupt in 1999. It has five manufacturing facilities in Korea as well as an assembly facility in Vietnam. In addition, GM Daewoo provides market and brand-specific vehicle kits for assembly at GM facilities in China, Thailand, India, Colombia and Venezuela. In 2008, GM Daewoo sold in Korea and exported more than 1.9 million units, including CKD products. GM Daewoo now produces vehicles and kits for Chevrolet, Buick, Opel, Vauxhall, Pontiac, Holden and Suzuki that are offered in more than 150 markets on six continents.
Company history
Early history
The company was first established as National Motor in 1937 in Bupyeong-gu, Incheon, South Korea. The name was changed to Saenara Motor in November 1962.
Saenara was assembling and selling Datsuns Bluebird P310.[1] Very first automobile company in Korea, Saenara was equipped with modern assembly facilities, and was established after the Automobile Industry Promotion Policy was announced by the South Korean government in 1962.[2]
Saenara Motor was then bought by Shinjin Industrial in 1965, which changed its name to Shinjin Motor after establishing collaborations with Toyota. Shinjin range included various Toyota models, such as the Publica, T40 Corona and Crown.
After Toyota's withdrawal in 1972, Shinjin Motor started a joint venture with General Motors under the name General Motors Korea (GMK), but was renamed again in 1976 to Saehan Motor. GMK shortly sold their Rekord under the GMK marque, together with the Holden Torana based Chevrolet 1700. When GMK was renamed to Saehan, the 1700 became Saehan Camina.[3]
Saehan's range was composed of diverse GM models : the Saehan Gemini was based on 1974 Isuzu's Belett Gemini, then replaced by the Maepsy (known under the Saehan Bird name in export versions), which was a development of the Gemini.[4]
Its pickup derivate, the Saehan Max is now a part of Korean automobile history. Saehan also marketed the Opel Rekord E and created later on, on this basis, their Royale Series, composed of the Royale Diesel, Royale Automatic and Royale Salon models.
Daewoo Motor
After the Daewoo Group gained control in 1982 the name was changed to Daewoo Motor Co.. Until 1996 all cars were based on models from General Motors. All Saehan models were named Daewoos, the Maepsy being refreshed became Maepsy-Na. The Royale Series models were kept, Daewoo addding the Royale XQ and Royale Duke (March 1982), Royale Prince (July 1983) and Royale Salon Super (March 1986).
Above the Royale range was added in 1989 the Daewoo Imperial flagship luxury car, which styling was reminiscent of the contemporary Chrysler Imperial and New Yorker, but also luxury Japanese sedans. It was produced until 1993.
The first Daewoo addition was the 1986 Daewoo LeMans, based on the Opel Kadett E ; 3-door versions were called Racer, and 5-door Penta-5. This car had an internation ambition for GM, as it was sold almost worldwide, as the Pontiac LeMans, Asüna GT and SE, or Passport Optima. This car was produced until February 1997, being one of Daewoo Motor's greatest successes. 1986 was also the year Daewoo offered a badge-engineered version of Nissan's Vanette.
In 1990 was created the Espero, designed by Bertone of Italy, initiating a tradition at Daewoo Motor of models created by Italian designers.
Daewoo Heavy Industries (DHI) introduced in 1991 the Tico mini car, which was sold at Daewoo Motor's dealers. DHI was also selling since 1981 the Damas minivan and Labo mini pickup - Tico, Damas and Labo being based on Suzuki models. When the Royale Series range was discontinued, its models were slightly refreshed and offered under the Prince and Super Salon/Brougham names until respectively 1997 and 1999.
In 1992, the joint-venture with GM ended, leaving Daewoo Motor as an independent company.
In 1994, Daewoo started importing the second generation Honda Legend to replace the discontinued flagship Imperial, under the name of Arcadia. This year, the LeMans got a slight refresh, and all variants (3,4 and 5-door) were then sold under the Cielo name.
The first "real" Daewoo Motor product, the Lanos, was introduced in late 1996. it spawned 3 variants : 4-door, 3-door called Romeo and 5-door Juliet - being the first model of a whole new family of cars to be created. Styling was a cooperation of Giorgetto Giugiaro and Italdesign. One of its main features was the all-new 3-parts corporate grill, reminding of the Daewoo Motor emblem, and which was going to be used on many Daewoo cars to come. February 1997 saw the birth of the Nubira, first Daewoo model to be produced in their then new Kunsan motor plant and designed by Italian I.DE.A Institute. In March 1997, the mid-size Leganza followed, also designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, borrowing some styling cues of the existing 1990 Jaguar Kensington concept-car.[5]
1999 Daewoo Chairman
In 1998, after the Asian financial crisis, Daewoo Motor took over the troubled 4WD specialist SsangYong Motor. Its SUVs models, such as Korando, Musso and Rexton were sold under the Daewoo-SsangYong badge in South-Korea (contrary to other areas such as Europe where the Daewoo Korando existed, as an example). SsangYong's flagship limousine, the Chairman was on its part integrated to the Daewoo range, becoming the Daewoo Chairman with a new 3-parts Daewoo corporate grill. The Istana van was also renamed Daewoo.
1998 was also the introduction of one of Daewoo Motor's best known car : the Matiz, whose design signed by Giorgetto Giugiaro was based on the 1992 concept car Lucciola which was initially imagined as a replacement for the Fiat Cinquecento. This car has been Daewoo Motor's best-seller for the next four years. In 1999, Daewoo presented the Magnus, which was a development of the existing Leganza. Sold alongside the Leganza in Korea until the end of the latter's production in 2002, it existed in 2 variants : Classic and Eagle (sportier). The Rezzomini MPV was introduced in early 2000. Matiz, Lanos and Nubira got a mid-life facelift in 2001, becoming Matiz II, Lanos II and Nubira II. In 2002, the L6 Magnus was introduced, equipped with Daewoo's first straight-six engine, with new front grill and lamps - and Daewoo also presented the Kalos subcompact to replace the Lanos.
By 1999, the whole Daewoo Group ran into financial trouble, and was forced to sell its automotive division. Candidates for the operation included Hyundai associated with DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Company and the GM-Fiat alliance. Finally, General Motors was the one who bought Daewoo Motor's assets.
See also Daewoo Group for the complete history of Daewoo's bankruptcy.
Daewoo Group's bankruptcy and the beginnings of GM Daewoo
In 2001 General Motors bought most of Daewoo Motor's assets to form GM Daewoo. The new company started operations on October 17, 2002, with GM and its partners Suzuki and SAIC holding a stake of 66.7% with investments of US$400 million. The GM holding was formally purchased by GM Holden Ltd which holds a seat on the board.[6] The remaining equity stake of 33.3% was held by Korea Development Bank and several other Korean creditors with investments of US$197 million. The deal did not include 15 plants, especially Daewoo's oldest plant in Bupyeong-gu which now operates under the name Daewoo Incheon Motor Company as a supplier to GM Daewoo. In 2004, Tata Motors purchased Daewoo's Truck manufacturing unit. In February 2005, GM invested US$49 million to raise its share in the company to 48.2%. In 2008, General Motors owned 50.9%, Suzuki 11.2 %, the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation 9.9 % and the Daewoo Motor Creditors Committee the remaining 28%.[7] In October 2009, GM increased its GMDAT holding; as of this date, GM is 70.1 percent owner, the Korean Development Bank holds 17 percent, Suzuki 6.8 percent and SAIC 6 percent.[8]
GM DAT has design, engineering, research & development facilities that are involved in development for various GM products, above all small-size cars. On November 25, 2003, the design center was relocated to the new 2-story building at the Bupyeong-gu headquarters.
The first car to be produced under the GM Daewoo nameplate was the 2002 Lacetti, replacing the Nubira. This car was developed under the Daewoo Motor era, but its fate became incredible, becoming GM's world car, sold under many different marques all around the globe. After a few years without real new car to present, GM Daewoo introduced in 2005 the Holden based Statesman luxury car replacing the discontinued Daewoo Chairman. The third generation of Matiz was introduced, refreshed by the GM Daewoo desing team, and an evolution of the 4-door Kalos appeared : the Gentra.
In early 2006, GM Daewoo presented the L6 Magnus replacement, the Tosca. GM Daewoo's official press releases says that Tosca is an acronym for "Tomorrow Standard Car".
The end of the same year, GM Daewoo introduced the Winstorm - its first proper SUV, which is, as the Lacetti, sold worldwide under different marques and names including Opel, Chevrolet, Holden or Saturn. It featured a common railDiesel engine for the first time in a Daewoo vehicle, in addition to regular four and six cylinder gasoline engines. The diesel engine design is licensed from the Italian engine maker VM Motori.
2007 has seen the introduction of the wagon version of the Lacetti and Kalos hatchback's facelift, becoming Gentra X. For 2008, GM Daewoo introduced the first korean roadster : the G2X sports car, a badge-engineeredSaturn Sky, and started to sell the Opel Antara under the name of Winstorm MaXX. The Statesman flagship was also replaced by the new Veritas still on a Holden basis.
Late 2008 and early 2009 were a major period for GM Daewoo with the introduction of the all-new Lacetti Premiere, which is the basis of the Chevrolet Cruze, a very important car for GM worldwide. The latest GM Daewoo product today is the all-new Matiz Creative, third generation of Matiz mini car.
In the 1990s, Daewoo expanded its presence under its own brand, notably in Europe, where it sold the Opel Ascona-based Espero and Kadett-based Daewoo Nexia (also Racer and Cielo in the domestic market; the latter is often spelled as Ciero for more Korean-like sound. The Cielo was named Heaven (Cielo means heaven in Spanish) in the Chilean market.
Ssangyong models Korando, Musso and Rexton were sold briefly under the Daewoo brand in certain European countries (most notably France and Germany) from 1999 to 2001.
Under the supervision of Dr. Ulrich Bez, Daewoo developed its own models not based on any GM platform. These were codenamed as the T100, J100 and V100, reflecting the code names used by General Motors, with Italdesign Giugiaro working on the T100 and V100. The J100 was designed by IDEA of Italy. These were exported from late 1998 to Daewoo Motor America as the sub-compact Daewoo Lanos, compact Daewoo Nubira ("to go everywhere/anywhere" in Korean), and the mid-size Daewoo Leganza (similar to "eleganza" in Italian). Other markets received these three cars, too. The Leganza's styling was reportedly based on an Italdesign show car based on Jaguar XJ-12 mechanicals; the real thing was more modest, with Holden-built 2.2 L engines shipped from Melbourne to Daewoo's Korean plant.
The Rezzo/Tacuma minivan and the Matiz/Spark micro-car are other models sold by Daewoo in various markets. The Magnus/Evanda is a development of the Leganza. The Daewoo Kalos subcompact was released in late 2002. A new version of the Nubira sedan was released in 2003 while the Daewoo Lacetti, a 5-door hatchback version of the Nubira, followed in 2004. The Kalos and the Lacetti were styled by Giugiaro, and styling of the Nubira sedan was the responsibility of Pininfarina. These models are sold under the Chevrolet brand in Europe.
Daewoo owned a share of AvtoZAZ, an automobile manufacturer based in Ukraine, from 1998 to 2003. The CKD assembly of the Daewoo Lanos started 2002 and lately it was adopted for full-scale production as the ZAZ Lanos. A version of the Daewoo-developed Chevrolet Aveo is being assembled for local market at the Illichivsk subsidiary. Following bankruptcy of Daewoo Motors in 2001, UkrAVTO corporation bought out AvtoZAZ holding in 2002. All of the AvtoZAZ manufacturing facilities (most notably, MeMZ and Illichivsk assembling plant) were reincorporated into ZAZ. The company even adopted a new logo. The Daewoo part in the joint venture was bought out by Swiss venture Hirsch & CIE in 2003.
In August 1992, Daewoo set up UzDaewooAuto, a joint venture and a factory in Asaka city, Andizhan province, Uzbekistan, leveraging the presence of a large local ethnic Korean minority. Currently, the plant assembles the Matiz and the Nexia for both the local market and export, as well as the Lacetti hatchback and sedan for the domestic market only.
In 1994, Daewoo acquired the Automobile Craiova manufacture in Craiova, Romania which was producing a derivate of the Citroën Axel model, the Oltcit. The society name was changed to Romanian Daewoo Motor, abr. Rodae.[9] The entire production facility was refurbished to mainly produce the Cielo model and later, other models. Until 2008 it was producing the Daewoo Cielo, Matiz and Nubira models for the Romanian market, but also car parts for export, such as engines and gearboxes to GM Daewoo and to other companies. The factory was acquired by the Romanian Government and sold to Ford in 2007 (the official agreement was signed on 21 March 2008). The production of Daewoo models was stopped in May, 2008, and Rodae became "Ford Romania".
]Daewoo also invested into Poland's Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych (FSO) in 1995, forming a joint venture (Daewoo-FSO) for assembly of the Matiz microcar, a successor to the Tico that was very popular in the Eastern European market. Since January 2005 FSO began to produce Matiz and Lanos under their own trademark.
When making a joint-venture with the Polish company Fabryka Samochodów Ciężarowych (FSC) in 1995, Daewoo also created Daewoo Motor Polska which produced the Daewoo Lublin van and Daewoo Honker multi-purpose all-terrainpick-up truck by 1996, design based on the former Tarpan Honker. Daewoo Motor Polska and the British van manufacturer LDV developed together at this time the Maxus van. But after the Daewoo Group's bankruptcy, LDV secured the exclusive rights to the vehicle, purchased the tooling and moved it from Daewoo's plant in Poland to the LDV site in Birmingham. FSC was then sold by GM to the Britsh investment group Intrall and the Honker's design to the Polish company Andoria-Mot.
In 1998, the low-volume assembly of the Lanos, Nubira and the Leganza started in Taganrog, Russia, at the TagAZ-Doninvest factory.[10] The cars were sold on the local market under the Doninvest brand, as the Assol, Orion and Kondor, respectively. The project did not have much success, so TagAZ turned to Citroën to produce their Berlingo under the Orion-M name[11] and Hyundai to produce the Accent, and more recently, the chinese Chery A5 under their new TagAZ Vortex brand.
Following the GM buyout in 2002, GM Daewoo lost interest in its overseas assets; the deals on supplies of pre-assembled CKD kits ended in 2005 and the facilities are likely to rely on its own production capabilities from that point on.
Badge engineering : GM Daewoo and other GM marques
GM changed the Daewoo name to something with more prestige in order to increase sales in the local market. GM decided to comply and started selling the Daewoo Lacetti as Chevrolet Optra. This was not the first time GM sold re-badged Daewoo cars.
No Daewoo-built vehicles were offered in the US for the 2003 model year. However, Daewoo exports found their way to countries such as Canada, India and the People's Republic of China. In some places of the world (notably Canada, India and Israel) the Daewoo brand did not exist at the time anymore and Daewoo cars were sold as "Chevrolet."
The re-branded Daewoo models sold in Israel succeeded far beyond GM's expectations so the Daewoo re-branding strategy was adopted to other countries as well. In most European countries however, GM retained the Daewoo brand and original model names until December 31, 2004.
GM Daewoo-built vehicles returned to the US market in 2004 and continue to be marketed to this day. The Chevrolet Aveo, Suzuki Forenza and Suzuki Reno, all offered in the US market, are re-badged Daewoos (they are sold in South Korea as the Daewoo Gentra, Lacetti sedan, and Lacetti hatchback, respectively). Suzuki stopped offering rebadged Daewoos in the US market after the 2008 model year, though some few Forenzas and Renos from 2008 continue to be sold.
In 2005, GM branded most Daewoos as Chevrolets in most markets, with Europe starting in January. Exceptions are China (where the cars are rebadged as Buick and Chevrolet), South Korea (GM Daewoo), Vietnam (where Daewoo is retained), Australia and New Zealand (Holden), the United States (Chevrolet, Suzuki), and Canada (Chevrolet, Pontiac, and Suzuki). The intent of utilizing the Chevrolet brand worldwide is to make Chevrolet a global brand of GM. One casualty of this is that the "Nubira" name disappeared in favor of "Lacetti" in the UK, although the "Nubira" sedan remains in the rest of the Europe.
In areas where GM Daewoo has no official distributors, it is possible to buy the same car under several brand names.
Latest news and future products
GM Daewoo is supposed to take responsibility for developing the future version of the GM Gamma platform, currently used by the Opel Corsa D and the Fiat Grande Punto. Therefore, it has been speculated that the Chevrolet Corsa C, sold in Latin America since 2002, may be replaced or joined by a slightly modified version of the Corsa D - in the latter case, it might be named Astra (like the Chevrolet Vectra, which is a Opel Astra C with a different front end), and the Corsa may be followed by a Kalos/Aveo built on the Corsa B's platform with many shared pieces with the Chevrolet Celta.
First generation (1975–1978) based on Opel Rekord D
Second generation (1980–1991) based on Opel Rekord E, variants : Automatic, Diesel, Duke, Prince, Salon, Salon Super and XQ - Derivate : Daewoo Imperial high-end model, with a 3.0 engine
On the European SUV line (Korando, Musso, Rexton), Daewoo Motor used a new version of this emblem, more squared. (Later on, this logo was used by Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Co. Ltd (trucks), and Tata Daewoo.
GM Daewoo emblem in 2002 : a modernized evolution of the Daewoo Motor logo.
To be detailed : SsangYong-Daewoo logo, Statesman & Veritas hood ornament
^http://www.autofrancorusse.fr/AFR-AchatPanofr.html FRENCH "Entre septembre 1998 et fin 1999 l’usine TagAZ a assemblé près de 10 000 voitures Daewoo Lanos, Nubira et Leganza, sous sa marque Doninvest et avec des appellations locales."
