2006 deawoo Magnum/Suzuki Verona
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That’s right. The Verona just came out in the US last year, and here is the new one already.
To be fair, it had been sold as a Daewoo fro years before Suzuki started selling it over here.
And whay not just sell it here as a Chevy? It’s not like the Malibu is setting the world on fire.
This new Korean car looks more of a competition to the Accord and Camry than the Maalibu could ever be.
So what if Chevy only sells Korean cars, and Saturn sells re-badged Opels. Does that mean that the US arm of GM gave up on cars. Would they be only making trucks?
So what?
Daewoos are now called “Chevrolet” in Europe, and this new model might end up being the new Chevrolet Evanda over there.
Which means it would compete with GM’s own Opel Vectra??
So GM is making in Europe the same mistake they made here: too many brands selling competing, similar products…
That’s great…
GM can’t sell this car here as a Chevrolet cause the UAW would have a fit. As it is right now, GM is catching all kinds of flac over the GTO and the Aveo. If they decided to import a more expensive car here, they’d go on strike or make GM look anti-union in the media. So instead, GM goes around this by selling these cars as Suzukis in the States (which GM doens’t directly control and thus the UAW can’t do much about it) and as both Suzukis and Chevrolets in Canada where the CAW doesn’t seem to protest as much. So that’s GM’s thinking here.
As for the “why sell it in Europe when it competes with the Vectra” bit, the reasoning is that Chevy is a value/budget brand while Opel/Vauxhall is a more “upscale” brand intended to appeal to a different set of consumers. So the Chevy will be much cheaper and ‘simpler’ while the Vectra will have all the bells and whistles.
Besides which, if VW can have the A3 and the Golf co-exist, the Phaeton and the A8 co-e and Citroen and Puegot can have any number of similar models co-exist, then GM can do this with Opel/Vauxhall and Chevrolet.