GM Daewoo wins job to develop plaform for Aveo, other small cars for GM worldwide

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GM Daewoo wins job to develop plaform for Aveo, other small cars for GM worldwide
NORMAN THORPE | Automotive News
Posted Date: 11/29/05
SEOUL -- General Motors has selected its Daewoo subsidiary in Korea to develop the platform for the Chevrolet Aveo and other small cars for GM worldwide.

That designation is what GM used to call a design homeroom, although it no longer uses that terminology, Nick Reilly, president of GM Daewoo Auto & Technology Co., said at a press event here.

"We will develop the common (platform), and then other parts of the world will take that architecture and they will produce their version of that car," Reilly said.

It's "very, very significant for us to be named as a development center for the world for those cars," and reflects the high level of GM Daewoo's expertise, he said.

Development work in Korea is cheaper than in Europe and the United States. The Opel Corsa, GM Europe's second-best-selling model, and Chevrolet's top two sellers in Europe, the Aveo and Matiz, are based on the platform, called Gamma. The Aveo is called the Kalos in some European markets.

GM Daewoo will develop the successor to the fourth-generation Corsa that debuts at the Geneva auto show in March. The new Corsa was styled by GM Europe's design studio in Ruesselsheim, Germany.

In a related development, David Lyon, GM's executive director of design for the Asia-Pacific region, said GM Daewoo is expanding its design team and its number of projects.

But the process needs more than local hires. "We bring in a lot of people from other studios," elsewhere in GM, he said.

The design team has about 100 people. Lyon plans to add about 20 more.

"It's a pretty big spike of work," he said.

GM Daewoo has been doing about four designs a year, but probably will do about six next year and possibly even more than that in the future.

"They're not necessarily all for GM Daewoo. We do programs for Opel, for GM North America. This is a globally connected studio," he said.

"What we want to do at Chevrolet," Lyon said, "is have a much more dramatic, bold, dynamic look - very powerful-looking cars, whether it's a car or a truck, commuter car or whatever."

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