Rejoice, South Koreans! GM's done you a solid by dropping the embarrassing
Daewoo brand and replacing it with good ol' American Chevrolet. Celebratory burnouts along the DMZ, anyone? [
GM]
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Filed under: Chevrolet, GM, South Korea, Daewoo
Chevrolet Camaro in Korea - Click above for high-resolution image
There once was a time when
Daewoo was one of the biggest companies in South Korea. It was larger than both LG and Samsung, and second only to
Hyundai. But these days the name is all but gone.
The Korean government disbanded the Daewoo Group in 1999. At that point
GM already owned about half of Daewoo Motors, a stake that has varied over time. Ever since, the General has used Daewoo's resources to develop and produce a range of vehicles sold under other GM divisions, principally
Chevrolet, which has already replaced Daewoo in many markets to become GM's principal global brand. (The globalization of Chevrolet has escalated to such an extent that, over the course of last year, somewhere in the world, a Chevy was being sold every 7.4 seconds.)
One of the few exceptions has been in Korea itself, where the Daewoo name still means something. But that something isn't necessarily good, and so GM is phasing out the name even in the brand's own domestic market. The development has been
a long time coming, and will encompass both the cars themselves and the company that builds them. GM Daewoo Auto & Technology Co. is officially changing its name to GM Korea Co by the end of the quarter.
In an odd bit of history repeating, the company was called GM-Korea once before, after Detroit stepped in to take over half the company from
Toyota, which had collaborated with what was then known as Shinjin Motor until 1972. Full details of the announcement in the press release after the jump.
[Source: GM]
Continue reading Officially Official: Chevrolet replaces Daewoo name in Korea
Officially Official: Chevrolet replaces Daewoo name in Korea originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 14:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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