Compact car specialist Suzuki and General Motors’ Opel division are working together to develop another small car but have not yet decided where to build it, GM said on Tuesday.
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Reuters noted that the partners collaborated on a city car sold since 2000 as both the Opel/Vauxhall Agila and the Suzuki Wagon R+, which are built in Europe at a GM plant in Poland and Suzuki’s factory in Hungary.
“We are working on a next generation of that vehicle but we haven’t decided yet with Suzuki what will be the home plant for that,” a GM Europe spokesman told the news agency.
“Whether we do it all in one plant, whether we share it is up in the air. There is no decision made on that yet,” he said, adding it could take a year or two to determine this.
Reuters said he was responding to a report in Japan’s Nihon Keizai newspaper that said the two firms expect to produce about 150,000 units a year of the car, which will be equipped with a 1- to 1.3-litre engine, at Suzuki’s Hungarian plant from 2008. The car will be sold under their respective brands, it added.
A Suzuki spokesman could not confirm whether Suzuki and Opel plan to develop a new car, the news agency noted.
The paper reportedly said Suzuki will supply Opel with tens of thousands of units of the new car on an original equipment manufacturing basis, while Opel will help Suzuki procure parts to reduce costs.
Reuters noted that GM in March sold most of its stake in Suzuki back to the Japanese car maker, but the two companies said they would continue to work together on the operational level.
