Wagoner: Next Saab to be built in North America

[vxl]

Originally Posted by The Law

Saab can't built cars in europe for NA and be profitable.

It's still to be seen if GM can build cars in NA and be profitable.

[racy]

Originally Posted by kenman923

I had a dream that I bought a Saab 9-3.

Wake up. You'll love the car like no other, but you'll be committed to nevger purchase one again. Saab is a love/hate relationship. Having owned one, 9-3 in fact, and have several friends who are Saab owners, we've come to the conclusion that Saab's never really make it past Beta testing. That last 8 to 12 months of testing and getting the final bugs out never seems to happen.

I loved our 9-3 Aero, but cannot in good faith, recommend the car to anyone. Try and make sense out of that one.

[Beau]

^ I agree. I test drove a Saab 9-3 Aero with the 2.8 and a 6MT.
Great car. Looked AWESOME...........

When I got done test driving it, I was like wow this isn't too bad, although my wife accidently broke two things in the car, by barley touching them...(pieces of clip on plastic) I said to the sales person, so its in pretty good shape, whats it got like 40 or 50K on it.

Hes like.... No..

10,500...


...

Oh. It uhh, I thought... Its a nice car...

We didn't buy it obviously.

[dratnol]

Originally Posted by mgescuro

Flexible architectures... yes. Flexible plants? I've seen nothing that points to that fact, except an "idea" to do so.
Besides, 9-3, 9-4, and 9-5 are... Delta II, ThetaEpsilon, and Epsilon II.
Last I looked, they're not interchangeable.

Possible? Yes.... if a more competent company were running the show.

Sweden not being part of the Eurozone is detrimental to say the least. That much I understand.
But building all in 1 plant.... in the US? Dont think GM thinks that way.
Besides, GM would lump all Epsilon II's in one plant and build that way.

He is not suggesting that all Saabs be built in one plant. He is saying why not build the next 9-3 at Lordstown (Delta plant) and the 9-5 at Fairfax/Lake Orion (Epsilon plants). The only catch I see here would be coordinating the flow of parts from the suppliers but otherwise would make sense. If one country was cheaper to assemble the car in, you would be all set to do so and you cut out the shipping costs associated with transporting the final product over seas. To take it one step further, I think they should do it for all models even if they are not sold here. If it would be cheaper to produce the Insignia here and ship it to Europe, then do it.

[gardnet1]

The only way that Saab can be profitable is to make their mass-market cars in NA. Unless the 9-3 is made here they won't return to profitability for another decade or so.

[King Riffle]

You're all wrong.






He's talking about Saab's new Outlook/Acadia/Traverse clone!

[nadepalma]

Originally Posted by mgescuro

Flexible architectures... yes. Flexible plants? I've seen nothing that points to that fact, except an "idea" to do so.
Besides, 9-3, 9-4, and 9-5 are... Delta II, ThetaEpsilon, and Epsilon II.
Last I looked, they're not interchangeable.

Not sure I follow this Marc.

I thought GM already had some flexible plants. Fairfax builds the Malibu and the Aura since they are both Epsilon I based. Orion builds the G6. I read that when the UAW was striking Fairfax, some Malibu production was slated to be moved to Orion.

This speaks of flexible plants, no?

Since eventually Epsilon II will supplant the current Epsilon architecture, I would suspect this could mean the next 9-5 could be built in the US at one of these two factories, right?

As for "interchangability" I'm not sure what you mean. I don't remember my last post word-for-word, but obviously those products that correspond with those architectures could be built at their respective plants in North America. So since the 9-3 will be DeltaII based, and since DeltaII is supposed to be highly flexible, it could possibly be built in Lordstown next to the Cruze (again, we're hearing the retooled Lordstown plant would be flexible) or possibly in Mexico if the next Astra is produced there, etc.

Originally Posted by mgescuro

But building all in 1 plant.... in the US? Dont think GM thinks that way.
Besides, GM would lump all Epsilon II's in one plant and build that way.

No, I wasn't speaking of one plant, but spreading out those respecdtive Saab products to the plants that support already existing architectures (9-3 to Lordstown with DeltaII/Cruze, 9-5 to Orion or Fairfax with EpsilonII/Aura/Malibu/G6, 9-4X to Mexico with SRX, etc).

Still all this may not happen anyway....regardless of whatever Saab gets produced here.

[nadepalma]

Originally Posted by dratnol

He is not suggesting that all Saabs be built in one plant. He is saying why not build the next 9-3 at Lordstown (Delta plant) and the 9-5 at Fairfax/Lake Orion (Epsilon plants). The only catch I see here would be coordinating the flow of parts from the suppliers but otherwise would make sense. If one country was cheaper to assemble the car in, you would be all set to do so and you cut out the shipping costs associated with transporting the final product over seas. To take it one step further, I think they should do it for all models even if they are not sold here. If it would be cheaper to produce the Insignia here and ship it to Europe, then do it.

I didn't see your post, dratnol, before I posted myself, but yeah, this is pretty much what I'm saying.

Why not build the products here for our North American consumption if they can be produced more affordably? This is especially true if the US is Saab's biggest market.

[ColinOpseth]

Originally Posted by nadepalma

Why not build the products here for our North American consumption if they can be produced more affordably?

That's something I never thought I'd hear again.

[The Law]

Originally Posted by ColinOpseth

That's something I never thought I'd hear again.

sad but true, GM needs to be able to make all vehicles for all markets within that giving market and the labor unions need to relax, or all jobs will fall to states without labor laws.

[AbsoluteSaab]

This is the same thought I've been having on GM's Global production operations.
Each brand is built per territorial destination.

Cruze can be built in NA for american market, Antwerp for Europe, Sweden for Scandinavian countries, UK for RHD market, etc.

The same would go for all other models and brands. So GM won't just have 1 or 2 models being built at a plant, they would have maybe as many as 6 different brands plus the model variations to go with them?