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15 Apr 2005, 03:01 (Ref:1278489) | #51 | |||
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Before, GM must have saved a lof money racing the Vectra in the UK as the Vauxhall, Opel in Germany and Chevy in South America. GM would never allow a S2000 Vauxhall Astra to face off against their own S2000 Chevy Lancetti. There's been ongoing debate if having your own divisions compete against each other is a good idea? |
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15 Apr 2005, 07:20 (Ref:1278596) | #52 | ||
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RML has mentioned selling customer cars in 2006, if that happened we could see an S2000 Chevy against the BTC Astra.
Vauxhall only exists as a brand in the UK, so far GM has resisted the obvious temptation to rebrand it as Opel for Europe wide synergy. Possibly GM feel that Vauxhall has too much heritage and brand loyalty to risk. By rebranding Daewoo as Chevy they achieved the reverse, adding heritage and image to a weaker brand. I think it's an important point that we will see more consolidation in the car market, but I don't believe that brand conflict is such an issue. Even though they may own competing brands, car each one has their own identity and market place. Most viewers and car buyers won't know that Vauxhall and Chevy are owned by the same company. If you took competing interests to it's logical conclusion, you wouldn't have a VW and Seat dealership in the same town, yet quite often they will be in the same road. On the point about competing divisions in motorsport. Looking at the Vaxuhall/Chevy case, even if they were racing the same spec car (S2000) they are appealing to different buyers - no one is going to choose between a Lacetti and an Astra Sportshatch as a car purchase. Each is sending out a different message. Vauxhall is pushing it's VXR brand to tell you that it doesn't just cater for the company car market, whilst Chevy are announcing their arrival and creating a sportier image for the cars. |
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15 Apr 2005, 07:33 (Ref:1278603) | #53 | ||||
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15 Apr 2005, 12:53 (Ref:1278857) | #54 | ||
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Vauxhall is seen by GM as it's lead European brand now, ahead of Opel and Chevrolet. Therefore they are having more say and development of the cars, resulting in the ever increasing VXR range.
GM is also pushing VX and Opel upmarket with the takeover and rebranding of Daewoo > Chevrolet, so theoretically they aren't competing for the same place, but I still can't imagine both competing at the same time. |
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15 Apr 2005, 17:09 (Ref:1279076) | #55 | |
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On a works level I doubt we'll see it happen. I think the point ST was trying to make was that RML want to sell customer cars so assuming the price is right you could see an independent Chevrolet against work and indie Vauxhalls.
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15 Apr 2005, 17:59 (Ref:1279101) | #56 | |||
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15 Apr 2005, 21:41 (Ref:1279219) | #57 | |
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Vauxhall may not sell as many cars as Opel does due to it's vast size, but perhaps Vauxhall have a far larger market share. Perhaps I'm saying, it should be of course they have a big market share - you just need to look at the sales charts for each month!
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16 Apr 2005, 00:48 (Ref:1279339) | #58 | ||
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Vauxhall is a huge brand in the UK and always sell fairly strongly, GM want to keep that tradition going. No better place to market the goods than in the UK's biggest series. It's as simple as that really, they'd gain nothing from racing the Chevy's locally when they can hit every shore in Europe simply by doing the WTCC.
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16 Apr 2005, 09:28 (Ref:1279486) | #59 | ||
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fair enough! makes more sense now! lol
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16 Apr 2005, 10:56 (Ref:1279529) | #60 | ||
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I think Silk Cut Jaguar has hit the nail on the head. Vauxhall is GM's strongest brand in the UK by a mile and therefore they want to keep pushing for dominance and name awareness on home territory. The Chevrolet rebranding has been exercised to eliminate the bad press/name awareness of the Daewoo range. some of the european Daewoo range have been sold in NA for a while now, namely the Aveo which is the largest seller in its segment. Over here its the Kalos and hardly anyone has a clue what it is. With the rebranding in teh UK to Chevrolet , this aligns Chevrolets European stance in that this is GM's 'entry level' brand - value for money. Why race in a uk only series when they can get coverage across the whole of europe.
i dont know the whole ins and outs but would presume that as Opel is a german based manufacturer, they would follow the same philosophy in sticking to the DTM??? |
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16 Apr 2005, 14:13 (Ref:1279639) | #61 | |||
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Vauxhall is a UK only brand I believe now, not sold anywhere else. |
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16 Apr 2005, 15:38 (Ref:1279674) | #62 | ||
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Correct, Vauxhall is only sold to the English and Northern Ireland markets. In the Republic of Ireland its Opel as it is in most of Europe. In Australia, the brand is Holden. In the Uk, Vauxhall market the Monaro as a Vauxhall when its pretty much a Holden with a GM Corvette 6.0ltr engine on board. The old Omega was marketed as the Holden Commodore in Aus.
The idea of re-naming Vauxhall to Opel was touted a few years back but pretty much binned instantly as Vauxhall was/is a well known marque, much more so in the UK than either Holden or Opel. |
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16 Apr 2005, 20:56 (Ref:1279793) | #63 | |
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Vauxhall is also sold in Scotland and Wales, to save any confusion from the above post...
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17 Apr 2005, 10:28 (Ref:1280181) | #64 | ||
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Apologies, touringlegend is quite correct!! excuse my english bias.....
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17 Apr 2005, 22:58 (Ref:1280738) | #65 | |||
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I don't believe the Vauxhall Omega has ever really equated as a Holden machine...I believe the Astra & Corsa are sold as 'SMART like' cars in Australia with a Holden badge A new Holden just on the market (the Torana) will probably be marketed in the UK at some point as the new Vauxhall Omega. But back to the point...yeah, we'll have Vauxhall's forever...I don't really understand the Daewoo - Chevrolet thing myself...it's sort of devaluing the Chevy brand rather than 'upping' the Daewoo...it's been proved that decent competition and product can turn a marque around better than a cheap rebadging exercise (okay, Nissan got away with it with Datsun!) - but VW turned Skoda around without calling them 'Audi Jnr's' or something...Skoda just came in the top 3 in the JD Power survey. (I still wouldn't get one, thus destroying the point I tried to make!) Last edited by Hazard; 17 Apr 2005 at 23:00. |
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18 Apr 2005, 06:57 (Ref:1280918) | #66 | ||
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I think the issue with Daewoo and Chevy, is that Daewoo cars eminated out of the Daewoo group which makes everything from DVD players to Diggers. So GM wanted to break the association.
With your Skoda/VAG example it was much more clear cut, Skoda was only recognised outside it's home country as a car maker. |
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25 Apr 2005, 16:08 (Ref:1287044) | #67 | |||
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25 Apr 2005, 20:30 (Ref:1287316) | #68 | ||
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to clarify. Although they make looks similar the Omega and Holden Commodore share very few parts. Even the chassis is quite a bit wider.
Anyway, Holden do market the Astra, Vectra and Corsa in Australia, while to confuse things a couple of Holdens are badged as Buick's in China and Chevrolet's in Dubai. However, I'm not aware of any Daewoo products being marketed as Vauxhall or an Opel? Having worked for the company on a project, it wasnt the association with DVD players (they do lots more than that). The reason was after the collapse a few years ago, Daewoo got a bad name, prior to that, its customer base was loyal. Once GM took full control, they wanted to try and standardise things so as half the Daewoo's are available in North America as Chevrolets, and that brand no longer had a presence in Europe, that suited the bill perfect. Chevt has an appalling image in the US, while in Europe, Chevy has a much better image....much better than Daewoo As for the Monaro. Think of HSV like AMG. The base car is made by Holden, then HSV tune it and bodykit it. In Oz, this is marketed as two vehicles, but in the UK its two models. |
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25 Apr 2005, 20:34 (Ref:1287321) | #69 | ||
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for reference.
Vauxhall Opel products sold elsewhere with different names. Holden - Corsa (Barilla), Astra and Vectra Chevrolet Colbalt and Pontiac Pursuit is loosely based on the new Astra Saturn Saloon is loosely based on the last generation Vectra GM Daewoo/Chevy Europe products, know in the UK, sold in North America Kaloss sold as Chevrolet Aveo, a Pontiac and a Suzuki Lacetti sold as a Chevrolet Optra and as a Suzuki Nasty big Daewoo we dont get is sold as a Chevrolet Epsilon and a Suzuki |
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26 Apr 2005, 02:59 (Ref:1287540) | #70 | ||
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Don't forget the Vectra is also being sold in NA as the Chevy Malibu. However, our "Vectra" has a different front end than the Euro version.
http://www.gmcanada.com/english/vehi...vrolet/malibu/ http://www.dtm.de/bild.en.php?bild=f...042.jpg&id=117 The rear of the car is the same for Europe/NA. For some reason, GM thought the Euro Vectra's front end could use some tweaking for NA audiences?? Go figure! Last edited by kmchow; 26 Apr 2005 at 03:03. |
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26 Apr 2005, 10:20 (Ref:1287742) | #71 | ||
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One of the biggest reasons for the Daewoo/Chevrolet name change (over the 'bad name' that Daewoo had) was the fact that although GM 'bought out' Daewoo motors, they never actually owned the brand name and as other posts have quite rightly said, Daewoo are a massive industrial company building anything from fridges to oil tankers, Dvd players to Oil drilling rigs. The re-branding was essentially to distance the cars from the name which as said previously had become somewhat tarnished in the marketplace.
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26 Apr 2005, 10:28 (Ref:1287746) | #72 | ||
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Incidentally, why is there suddenly an Opel in BTCC?
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27 Apr 2005, 07:43 (Ref:1288296) | #73 | ||
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Is there? |
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27 Apr 2005, 09:32 (Ref:1288360) | #74 | ||
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888 tested with an opel badge during the winter, when they were out at mangy cours, one car had that, one had the "V" style and one had a large vauxhall crest thingy!
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27 Apr 2005, 16:34 (Ref:1288676) | #75 | |
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OK, but there's not an Opel "in the BTCC"!
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