Bye bye Daewoo: GM drops the "Daewoo" brand entirely. Hello Chevy.

[MetroMPG]

"End of a brand: Farewell Daewoo, hello Chevy!"

While GM North America renames the Aveo to "Sonic", GM Daewoo is completely dropping the Daewoo name in favour of Chevrolet.

From: INSIDE JoongAng Daily

One of the [Korean] nation’s leading automotive brand names - Daewoo - is going the way of Pan Am.

GM Daewoo Auto & Technology, the Korean unit of U.S.-based General Motors, said yesterday that it will relegate the Daewoo brand to history in favor of the more internationally familiar Chevrolet to build a stronger presence in the Korean market.

[...]

GM Daewoo will be launching the Camaro as its first vehicle under the Chevrolet brand in the first quarter of this year, followed by seven other vehicle releases in 2011, including the Chevrolet Orlando and the Chevrolet Aveo, as well as a sport utility vehicle and a new premium, midsize sedan.

Oh, and this is interesting. Not only are the cars to be branded as Chevys, they're completely renaming the company:

In fact, the automaker also announced yesterday its decision to change its company name [from GM Daewoo] to GM Korea Company. ... The name change will be effective before the end of March.

[Aveeo]

They'll kill their sales in Korea by doing this. Any foreign make in Korea is much more expensive than a Korean brand.

I'm kind of sad about this, because Daewoo made good cars. This is what I hate about GM; They get a hold of good competition, take the technology that they need, and try to kill them off. What happened to Suzuki, Isuzu, Saab, and now Daewoo ? If GM is to succeed, they need to keep the name GM Daewoo around, and let them have a little independence. Daewoo has more potential developing on their own than having GM down there, cutting corners and making the vehicles hardly competitive.

[petrified.rabbit]

i agree it will hurt them "locally" in the asian market. But it might help them elsewhere, because my car has "daewoo" stickers all over it, if it said chevy on it, maybe less people would be so quick to criticize. Of course now they might be trying to "backdoor" the market with ALL the press of the US built car, then pass the korean car as an "exact" copy, where you would have to know the vin starts with a K instead.. less people know that.

i remember reading this a while ago, as the daewoo officials denied it. i was reading it as they had been importing pontiac solstice, and corvettes into korea and they had funky badges on them..

[petrified.rabbit]

example:

[MetroMPG]

Take this with a grain of salt of course, but the article also says that 90% of GM Daewoo manufacturing employees are apparently in favour of the name change. Maybe they're hoping that represents the general response from the Korean market too.

[petrified.rabbit]

maybe because once they are in a Chevy factory they will qualify to join the UAW.. ?

that will be great for korea. haha.

[MetroMPG]

Found some sales stats that help explain GM's decision to do the Daewoo/Chevy swaparoo:

How many Daewoo branded vehicles do you think the company sold globally in 2010?
Answer: 129,829

And how many Chevys?
Answer: 4,271,189

So it's not like they have a lot to lose by abandoning the name.

In fact, of the nine brands GM sells globally, there was only one that sold fewer than Daewoo. And I bet you've never even heard of it (I hadn't):
Answer: Jiefang

Source: Chevrolet Media - Europe - News

Top Brands:

Brand . . . 2010 Deliveries . . . 2009 Deliveries . . . % Change . . . 2009


1. Chevrolet       4,271,189       3,517,412     21.4     1
2. Opel/Vauxhall   1,206,620       1,236,221     (2.4)    2
3. Wuling          1,149,060       1,001,213     14.8     3
4. Buick             718,848         558,533     28.7     4
5. GMC               446,547         353,258     26.4     5
6. Cadillac          180,724         128,838     40.3     7
7. Holden            140,771         126,089     11.6     8
8. Daewoo            129,829         121,345      7.0     9
9. Jiefang            88,224          34,860    153.1     12

[Imperial1.6]

Jiefang makes commerical trucks for GM in Asia

[petrified.rabbit]

and their sales were up, isnt this still just an issue of labeling ?

wuling had surprising numbers though.

[thehunterooo]

never heard of either wuling or jiefang