General Motors (GM) expects to make 375,000 redesigned Corsa B-segment superminis at its plant in Figuerelas, Spain, next year, a company spokeswoman told just-auto on Tuesday.
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The announcement follows a EUR550m investment to ready the factory to build the new model, which has attracted 83,000 advance orders across Europe, with England, Germany and Italy accounting for most.
Currrently, Figuerelas makes 410 Corsas a day but hopes to ramp up to 1,200 in November, said Pedro Bona, secretary general for Spanish union UGT’s GM branch.
According to Bona, GM allocated the new Corsa to Figuerelas, which struggled to keep the Meriva mini-minivan derivative from going to a plant in Poland last year, because of the factory’s large and efficient press shop.
GM’s investment expanded the press lines and built a new paint shop to accommodate the redesigned model. Some of the previous generation were built in Germany.
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By GlobalData“The investment will allow us to produce more Corsas here. In the past, we had to send the parts for the cars we couldn’t make to Germany”, a strategy that increased the companies’ logistics and transport expenses, Bona noted.
Despite the production boost at Figuerelas, a German plant will continue to make some Corsas, Bona added.
According to Bona, the Figuerelas-built Corsa is being exported only across Europe but the plant could make the car for other markets in the future.
Previous generation models, badged Holden Barina, were shipped to Australia and New Zealand but they have been replaced by a rebadged GM Daewoo Kalos/Chevrolet Aveo model line (still named Holden Barina) built in Korea. The Spanish Corsa also once went to Japan badged as the Opel Viva.
Indeed, the Corsa is the factory’s “star model,” Bona said, adding that it should help boost GM Spain’s lagging fortunes this year. The Spanish subsidiary of the struggling US car giant posted a EUR16.5m loss in 2005, adding to five years of consecutive losses, the spokeswoman confirmed.
Ivan Castano [with additional reporting by Graeme Roberts]
