General Motors Europe’s Opel unit said its main Ruesselsheim plant at its headquarters near Frankfurt, Germany, would gain two extra vehicles – one a Buick for North America – to build later this decade.
It currently makes four Insignia variants (the line is also made and sold as the Buick Regal in North America) while the Zafira Tourer will be transferred there from Bochum in January 2015. Opel’s supervisory board this week allocated two more vehicles.
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“A significant investment of EUR245m will be made to build an additional model. Due to competitive reasons, details about this car will not be announced until the end of the year,” Opel said in a statement.
“The supervisory board also gave the green light for the future production of an additional variant of the Insignia. The Ruesselsheim plant has been chosen for the assembly of a future model which will be sold in the US under the Buick brand name. Start of production will also be in the second half of the decade.”
Ruesselsheim initially built Buick Regal-branded versions of the current generation Insignia for North America but production was, in 2010, moved to Oshawa, Canada. In the 1990s, the German plant built versions of an earlier Opel – the Omega – for sale in North America as the Cadillac Catera.
“With the investment in a new, additional model for Ruesselsheim, we will take another important step in our multi-billion dollar model offensive with which we will pave the way for Opel’s profitable growth,” said GM president and Opel supervisory board chairman Dan Ammann in a statement.
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By GlobalData“And the Buick production in Ruesselsheim will further improve our capacity utilisation,” added Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann.
“The decisions of the supervisory board for the production of a Buick and for the investment in an additional model for the Ruesselsheim plant are based on the recently concluded collective agreement. They are part of our extended growth strategy and are further evidence of GM’s confidence in Opel,” said Wolfgang Schäfer-Klug, head of the Opel works council and deputy chairman of the supervisory board.
Opel has also decided to end sales of the brand in China from January 2015.
“This is a long overdue decision,” said Neumann. “It would have cost hundreds of millions of euros to raise awareness of the Opel brand and to expand the distribution network. Buick, however, is one of the market leaders in China and we plan to intensify our future collaboration, with several projects currently under examination.”
Last year, 22 Opel dealers in China sold 4,365 vehicles. In comparison, Buick – with 650 dealers – sold about 810,000 vehicles in China, including several that were co-developed with Opel.
GM late in 2013 also axed Opel in Australia, less than a year after starting to develop it as a stand-alone brand. A local report earlier this month suggested Opel products could return down under, re-branded again as Holden.
Globally, Buick set an all-time global sales record last year, delivering 1.032m vehicles worldwide. Buick was GM’s third largest passenger car brand after Chevrolet (4.984m units) and Opel/Vauxhall (1.064m units).
