Say goodbye to Saturn (the car brand, not the planet)

Jstas

mhardy6647 wrote: »

And, actually, very early on, some of them were sold as Chevrolets (as I recall), e.g., the Metro.
Good ol' GM...

No, they weren't. In 1988, GM made Geo and thus was born the metro. Before that, GM was selling some Daewoos as Chevies and Pontiacs but they also had some Daihatsus as well. The Metro was a 2nd generation Suzuki Swift when it first came out. The first generation was sold here as a Suzuki Swift and also as a Chevy Sprint/Sprint Metro and a Pontiac Firefly. The "Metro" was a trim line for the Sprint. Oh and before the Prism there was the Chevy Nova, also based on the Toyota Corolla.

In 1998, GM dropped the Geo name and made all Geos entry level Chevrolets. At that point, only the Metro, Prism and Tracker were still sold. The Spectrum was replaced by the Storm in 1989 and built on the same chassis as the Storm. The Strom was dropped in 1993 because Isuzu stopped making cars. For 1998 model year, the Geo brands because the Chevy Tracker, Chevy Prism and Chevy Metro. The Tracker soldiered on until 2005, the Metro was sold until 2000 but lived on as a fleet vehicle until 2001 and the Prism was dropped in 2002 when Toyota redesigned the Crapolla...I mean Corolla.

Jstas

everpress wrote: »

Isuzu also had he Hombre, which was an S-10 all the way through.
Suzuki and GM still partner with Daewoo, with Suzuki owning some 30% or so of the company.
Gm doesn't sell Daewoo here in the states because it eats into it's other car brands, thus loses the GM line money, as the price point for a Daewoo is less than that of a GM badged car, but in many instances they are th same build, and sometimes the sheet metal.
Also, Saturn-badged cars in the states are sold elsewhere as Daewoo badged cars overseas. (Look at the Saturn Skye vs the Daewoo G2X.)
So while there are 'cheap' cars in GM's line that are Daewoo builds, GM still rebadges some of the mid-level GM cars over seas badged as Daewoo and Opel because people won't buy a GM-badged car or they can't afford one.

Weird how many American's have an issue with Korean-car reliability, but we are the "Korean-car" for the rest of the world...

Um, Suzuki doesn't own any part of Daewoo. The Daewoo Motors division that was broken off from Daewoo by the South Korean government back in 1999 is wholly owned by GM. The commercial truck division of Daewoo Motors was sold off to Tata but, that's it. In fact, last I checked, the only thing that a Japanese company might own from Daewoo is part of the MMSK Corporation. That's just a corporate head of a joint venture between Mitsubishi and Daewoo to import Mitsubishi Motors products and only in to Korea I believe. But Mitsubishi's stake is quite small, less than 20% if I remember the news stories properly.


GM doesn't sell Daewoo branded stuff because Daewoo got a really bad rep back in the mid 90's through their sales model and the fact that they were building crap. It was shiny crap but still crap. Market studies showed that people were more willing to buy a Chevy Aveo than a Daewoo Nubria.

everpress

Jstas wrote: »

Um, Suzuki doesn't own any part of Daewoo. The Daewoo Motors division that was broken off from Daewoo by the South Korean government back in 1999 is wholly owned by GM. The commercial truck division of Daewoo Motors was sold off to Tata but, that's it. In fact, last I checked, the only thing that a Japanese company might own from Daewoo is part of the MMSK Corporation. That's just a corporate head of a joint venture between Mitsubishi and Daewoo to import Mitsubishi Motors products and only in to Korea I believe. But Mitsubishi's stake is quite small, less than 20% if I remember the news stories properly.


GM doesn't sell Daewoo branded stuff because Daewoo got a really bad rep back in the mid 90's through their sales model and the fact that they were building crap. It was shiny crap but still crap. Market studies showed that people were more willing to buy a Chevy Aveo than a Daewoo Nubria.

"In 2004, General Motors and Suzuki jointly purchased the bankrupt Daewoo Motors renaming the venture GMDAT. American Suzuki rebadged the compact Daewoo Nubira/Daewoo Lacetti as the Forenza and the mid-size Daewoo Magnus as the Verona. The Forenza gained station wagon and hatchback body style in 2005, with the hatchback sold under the Reno name."
And it's only a little over 11% ownership by Suzuki; a little over 30% is held by Korean banks, and a little over 50% by GM.

And if GM doesn't sell rebadged GM products as Daewoo-branded products, explain the Saurn Skye example in my previous post.

Jstas

everpress wrote: »

"In 2004, General Motors and Suzuki jointly purchased the bankrupt Daewoo Motors renaming the venture GMDAT. American Suzuki rebadged the compact Daewoo Nubira/Daewoo Lacetti as the Forenza and the mid-size Daewoo Magnus as the Verona. The Forenza gained station wagon and hatchback body style in 2005, with the hatchback sold under the Reno name."
And it's only a little over 11% ownership by Suzuki; a little over 30% is held by Korean banks, and a little over 50% by GM.

And if GM doesn't sell rebadged GM products as Daewoo-branded products, explain the Saurn Skye example in my previous post.

Well, now that I check, what you are saying occurred in late 2008. There has been so much going on and so much changed in the last year I guess I missed it.

Also, GM doesn't sell Daewoo stuff here. In Korea they do but outside of the U.S. and Canada, nobody knows what a Saturn is. And honestly, the Sky/Solstice aren't Saturns or Pontiacs or Daewoos. They are based on the Opel GT which is essentially the progression of the Opel Speedster which was based on a Lotus Elise. But the Opel GT and it's siblings are built on the Kappa platform which is all GM and was built in Wilmington Delaware but all three cars are dead now. But the G2X is a Saturn Sky. It just has Daewoo badges on it and it's sold in Asia in Korea and neighboring countries. But it was only sold for one year from 2007-2008.

So I'll clarify, GM does not badge cars as Daewoo for the American market.

everpress

Jstas wrote: »

So I'll clarify, GM does not badge cars as Daewoo for the American market.

It's all good; I didn't say they did for the American Market; I was referring to sales outside the US, where they do take holden/opel/gm branded cars and slap a Daewoo badge on them (hence the existance of a Skye with a Daewoo moniker, for example).

This will be changing in 2010 or 2011, though, as the GMDaewoo logo is being completely tossed and replaced by a Chevy Bowtie logo in most Asian countries it is sold in.

I was shocked to see the Daewoo Arcadia being a rebadged Japanese Honda Legend from 1994-2000 (known as the Acura Legend here); imagine buying an Acura at a Daewoo price point!

vc69

I can't imagine buying a GM product at any price point.

mhardy6647

Jstas wrote: »

No, they weren't. In 1988, GM made Geo and thus was born the metro. Before that, GM was selling some Daewoos as Chevies and Pontiacs but they also had some Daihatsus as well. The Metro was a 2nd generation Suzuki Swift when it first came out. The first generation was sold here as a Suzuki Swift and also as a Chevy Sprint/Sprint Metro and a Pontiac Firefly. The "Metro" was a trim line for the Sprint. Oh and before the Prism there was the Chevy Nova, also based on the Toyota Corolla.

In 1998, GM dropped the Geo name and made all Geos entry level Chevrolets. At that point, only the Metro, Prism and Tracker were still sold. The Spectrum was replaced by the Storm in 1989 and built on the same chassis as the Storm. The Strom was dropped in 1993 because Isuzu stopped making cars. For 1998 model year, the Geo brands because the Chevy Tracker, Chevy Prism and Chevy Metro. The Tracker soldiered on until 2005, the Metro was sold until 2000 but lived on as a fleet vehicle until 2001 and the Prism was dropped in 2002 when Toyota redesigned the Crapolla...I mean Corolla.

I don't doubt any of the above. I do remember that when we bought our Corsica in 1987 (from Jerry's Beltway Chevrolet near Baltimore) and in the years thereafter there was, e.g., a Chevy Prism (or was it Prizm), later called the Geo Prizm. I thought they were the same car (an Isuzu), but maybe not. EDIT: ahh, it was called the Chevy Sprint. That's the ticket.

I remember those little Pontiac hatchback thingies that were Daewoos. Almost got killed in one (a rental) one day back when.

I also remember the Corolla/Nova well... considered buying one.

The Corsica was actually a great car; first car my wife and I ever bought new. We had it for 13 years and 188,000 miles. It had a 4 cylinder and a 5-speed, and would routinely run at 40 mpg on long trips (MD to NH). he only non-routine problem it ever had, fairly late in its life, was failure of the head gasket (which turned out to be repairable). It had its original clutch at 188k and still ran well when we donated it to some charity (I forget which).