General Motors Korea has confirmed to just-auto.com that the company’s Gunsan plant has ceased production and will close by the end of this month.
Meanwhile, another plant, Changwon, will continue to supply the Karl and Viva small cars to Opel and Vauxhall into 2019, it has been confirmed.
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In response to an enquiry over what now becomes of the factory, Haeho Park, a GM Korea Media spokesperson, added, “nothing has been decided on the future use of the site”.
Until recently, Gunsan was the manufacturing location for the Chevrolet Cruze and a rebadged version of the car which GM Holden markets in Australia and New Zealand as the Astra sedan. Holden is yet to state if it will now source a direct replacement for this car from another General Motors factory. Its five-door Astra comes from Gliwice in Poland.
In other news, GM Korea is now busy trying to shore up sales in the home market, and is preparing to relaunch various models. Its best seller is the Spark, which is built at Changwon. The Korean plant supplies this small car to multiple markets and is also the source of the closely related Opel Karl and Vauxhall Viva. Vauxhall’s press office told just-auto earlier on 18 May that “both of those models continue throughout this year and next”.
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