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We, or rather the Financial Times saw it coming a year ago: “General Motors is considering replacing the Daewoo brand with the Chevrolet name in South Korea.” And so they finally did.
“People will not be able to see the silver-colored Daewoo badge in brand-new vehicles down the road as GM Daewoo Auto & Technology is set to replace it with the bowtie-shaped Chevrolet emblem in months to come,” reports The Korea Times.
The De-Daewoofication will be complete: GM Daewoo Auto & Technology will even drop Daewoo from its corporate title sometime over the first quarter.The new name will be “GM Korea Company.
One out of every four Chevy vehicles is produced in Korea, and by changing the name, nobody can say that they are Daewoos.
29 Comments on “Daewoo Is Dead...”
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From wallpaper in a parisian establishment all the way to Korea; Billy Durant would be proud!
Sooooooo, does this raise the “stock” of Daewoo or detract from that of Chevrolet?
Ah…this is just a name change so I think this would only have a minor impact on GM’s stock value that is only really relevant to day traders (private and institutional). Nothing is intrinsically different than it was before except that they’re trading off more brand recognition for Chevrolet in SE Asia at the cost of any brand value the Daewoo name might have enjoyed in the few countries it still existed.
I think it makes sense in the long run though.
As for any potential current shareholders in GM Daewoo A&T other than GM itself, I don’t know if GM Daewoo A&T was publicly listed (but I’m guessing it was at least in S-Korea). If it was, people will probably receive equivalent shares in the renamed GM Korea Company or maybe GM will propose something fancy like trading the shares for regular GM shares (yeah good luck with that).
So GM stock – I’d say no big change
potentially hypothetical GM Daewoo A&T stock – Depends on what the parties involved have in mind exactly.
Maybe someone with more knowledge about this can chime in on this.
On the plus side, it shuts down certain bloggers from claiming that Chevies are rebadged Daewoos…
One out of every four, ay? I would have guessed the percentage would be a little higher than that but I guess they’re still not selling that much Aveos and Cruzes yet?
Also, the 3rd guy from the left looks like Sarkozy’s south korean cousin.
“and by changing the name, nobody can say that they are Daewoos.”
…Except us. ‘Cause we know.
big gamble on GM’s part in Daewoo’s engineers. The current Aveo and the global Chevrolet or Suzuki cars engineered by Daewoo are the most miserable cars sold in their respective markets. The Cruze (by being merely competent) was a huge step for Daewoo, and the new Sonic looks strangely promising…but have they really come far enough to gamble your corporate identity on them? Even now GM insiders or consumers in the know can still say “well yeah that’s sh!t but it’s really a Daewoo” (I’m looking at you, Chevy Epica). Moving forward, they can’t, so if it’s sh!t, it’s just GM sh!t
If a customer buys a Chevrolet Aveo and hates it, I doubt that someone pointing out to them that it’s really a Daewoo would do anything for the feelings said customer would have about the Chevrolet brand.
According to pretty much all of the professional auto reviews, the Cruze is more than just competent.
Some say it has class leading handling/steering feel and most say class leading interior.
The Daewoo name has no “cachet” – especially in the auto world. Daewoo as an industrial complex went out of business in about 2000 and GM picked up the automobile part at fire sale prices. The leaders of the original Daewoo were/are considered criminals in Korea and so the continued use of the name is a liability.
Long live Daewoo.
In fact, many buyers of GM Daewoo cars actually pay to have the GM Daewoo badge swapped for a Chevrolet badge (according to a WSJ article); GM is just giving the customers what they want.
Selfishly, I would make the majority of the automotive world GM, especially Chevrolet, but that was a long, long time ago. However, the Daewoo name never had any positive “capital” as far as I ever knew, at least in the USA. So if GM owns it, dump the name and make it all GM. There are ‘way too many car company names out there anyway. Look at the list of OEM carmakers in the USA 100 years ago. How many are left? How many were absorbed by others? A natural process that makes economic sense. How many Chinese auto makers will survive? A better question: how many should? South Korea has become a real powerhouse along with the rest of Asia.
For how big China is, and how many cars they’re selling, one imagines that anywhere from a dozen to 2 dozen brands would be possible, depending on whether they’re broad like Ford, or segmented like GM. Of course, starting at 100, there’s going to be major shakeout.
Is that the same Avatar it has been for the past 2 months or so? I always saw a 1965 Plymouth Fury III or VIP, or is that a 66 VIP I’m thinking of? NO?! I just realized its a 64 Impala Conv…SS? True.
makes sense if Chevy is to be a truly global brand.
DAEWOO!!!!!!!!
Anybody else remember that guy? Nothing like making a car brand look like that dude who sells books about how to get free grants from the government…
Daewoo , or Big Universe (literally) has never benefited from a good reputation in Korea. Calling them Chevies and badging will probably be a good thing over there.
So the US bails out GM and they expand their overseas efforts. It seems to me we could have gotten a few more concessions in this area for 62 B dollars. We essentially bailed out a foreign car company. If we bailed out Honda or Toyota at least they build cars here without Unions.
Buickman is right. GM announced some time ago that Chevrolet will be their global brand so dropping Daewoo as a brand makes sense. Unless there’s already an established GM brand in that global region (Holden, Opel, Vauxhall) they should be using Chevrolet as their local brand.
Toyota, Ford, Nissan etc. all brand their cars with the corporate name. GM is the only car company that has a corporate brand that they can’t use on their cars (well, Fuji Heavy Industries would look funny in chrome too, but they downplay their parental name), so it makes sense to use at least one of their actual car brands as a global brand.
Say it with me: “Cerberus Sebring”.
Or perhaps: “Proton Elise”
(Yes, I know Proton is used for the shitboxes they sell in Malaysia, but it’s not global)
As GS650G stated above your post.
Daewoo has little/no brand credibility in the Korean market. Whereas from Korean I spoken to, the Chey brand has more creditability.
This is a good thing, now I wonder what brand will be next to be culled, Vauxhall? (I can’t see Holden being culled).
GS650G
As recently as last April, GM was insisting that introducing the Chevy brand to Korea was about
brand coexistence, not brand replacement
In the process, GM introduced two new one-car brands to Korea: Veritas (Holden Commodore) and Alpheon (Buick LaCrosse). Let’s not rush to assume that this necessarily heralds a complete rationalization of GM’s global brand portfolio.
Pffffft, it’s just a rebadged Daewoo. Debate over.
Over here they get badged as Holdens but everyone knows REAL Holdens are RWD V8/V6.
But Daewoos are real Holdens. Holden owns Daewoo, has a seat on the board, sells Commodores in Korea with Daewoo badges and has much input into new car design there. It’s a little surprising Daewoo wasn’t rebranded as Holden [unless GMH is the next GM brand to go…]
Somewhere west of the Aleutians…..
… there’s a bronco-busting, steer roping girl who knows what I’m talking about. She can tell what a sassy pony, that’s a cross between greased lighting and the place where it hits, can do with eleven hundred pounds of steel and action when he’s going high, wide and handsome.
This is a smart move. The Daewoo car brand has more bad connotations than good, even in its home market. GM management has to be looking at the increasing success Ford is having with the “One Ford” global realignment. There is nothing wrong with learning lessons from the competition.
The Vauxhall brand should be eliminated as well. England would do just fine buying Opels since a Vauxhall is simply an Opel anyway. Why not take advantage of Europe wide marketing efforts?
What do you mean by DEAD? My dad is over there (1st at left corner.)