GM Daewoo

The Chevy Cruze will be sold across much of GM’s brand network including in South Korea where the car is known as the Daewoo Lacetti Premiere. In fact, South Korea is the first market where the Cruze appeared, introduced to that country in October 2008.

South Korea Gets The First Cruze Models

Having GM Daewoo roll out the Cruze makes sense especially since the Korean company will handle manufacturing of the Chevrolet Cruze for the European market. In February 2009, the first European Cruzes rolled off of a Korean assembly line, bound for markets across the European continent. Those cars feature 1.6-liter and 1.8-liter gasoline engines and 2.0-liter common rail diesel engines, the latter a popular option in Europe.

GM Daewoo is the current arrangement for a company started out as National Motors in 1937. General Motors had an arrangement with the automaker for many years throughout the 1980s and 1990s where the company built GM vehicles and sold then as Daewoos.

In 2001, following the financial collapse of Daewoo, GM made a pitch to purchase the company’s operations in a joint deal hatched with Japan’s Suzuki Corporation and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) of China. Today, GM has increased its share in the company to about 51% ownership. Currently, GM Daewoo supplies a pair of models to the US market — the Chevy Aveo and Pontiac G3.

Production of U.S. spec Cruzes will not begin until April 2010 at the earliest. The Lordstown Assembly Plant in Ohio is slated to produce the car with distribution of the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze beginning that summer.