The intertwining between the Opel and Buick brands continues with the German automaker announcing plans today to build a future Buick model for the United States at its plant in Ruesselsheim, Germany, in the second half of the decade. GM’s European subsidiary did not provide further details about the Buick car.
Opel said it would also invest €245 million [US$336 million] to build another, unnamed model, at the Ruesselsheim factory. “Due to competitive reasons, details about this car will not be announced until the end of the year,” Opel said in a statement. It added that the Supervisory Board also gave the green light for the future production of an additional variant of the Insignia.
“With the investment in a new, additional model for Ruesselsheim, we will take another important step in our multi-billion dollar model offensive with which we will pave the way for Opel’s profitable growth,” said GM President and Opel Supervisory Board Chairman Dan Ammann. “And the Buick production in Ruesselsheim will further improve our capacity utilization,” added Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann.
These two new models come on top of four Insignia variants and the Zafira Tourer, which will be produced at the Ruesselsheim plant from January of 2015.
GM also decided to pull out the German marque from the Chinese market in January of 2015. According to the Detroit company, a total of 22 Opel dealers in China sold just 4,365 vehicles, while Buick, which shares many models with Opel including the Astra and Insignia, delivered 810,000 cars through 650 dealers.
“This is a long overdue decision,” said Neumann. “It would have cost hundreds of millions of euros to raise awareness of the Opel brand and to expand the distribution network. Buick, however, is one of the market leaders in China and we plan to intensify our future collaboration, with several projects currently under examination.”
By John Halas
Note: 2014 Buick LaCrosse sedan pictured above
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