GM Lordstown unveils new car

By DAVID SKOLNICK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

LORDSTOWN — Goodbye, Cobalt. Hello, Cruze.

When the Lordstown General Motors complex starts building the Chevrolet Cruze in April 2010, it will only be a short period of time before production of the Chevrolet Cobalt, made exclusively at the same facility, will cease.

Though the Cobalt is GM’s best-selling car, production of the small vehicle will be discontinued to make way for the Cruze, company officials announced Thursday.

Chevy CRUZE

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GM lands CRUZE

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Ed Peper, GM North American vice president of Chevrolet, said the Lordstown plant will quickly phase out production of the Cobalt. The process should take less than a month. It could be even quicker.

Rick Wagoner, GM’s chairman and chief executive officer, said the company hasn’t decided if both cars would be produced at the same time.

Wagoner and Peper were at the plant to announce the company will invest more than $350 million to build the Chevrolet Cruze at the Lordstown complex.

It’s also going to be built overseas, where it will be launched first.

GM is investing more than $500 million overall to build “the Chevy Cruze product program,” including the investment at Lordstown, Wagoner said.

During the past five years, GM has invested more than $20 billion on its plants in the United States, including $2 billion in Ohio, he said.

“We’re here to stay,” Wagoner said of the Lordstown facility. The $350 million “will be money well spent. We are confident Lordstown is the right place to build the new Chevy Cruze.”

As part of the expansion, GM brought back a third shift with about 1,400 workers earlier this month, Wagoner said.

Gov. Ted Strickland praised GM for “trusting the Mahoning Valley and this work force” to produce the new vehicle.

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan thanked Wagoner and GM officials for deciding to build the Cruze in Lordstown, giving the Mahoning Valley something it “hasn’t had for a long time: hope.”

Though the Valley has seen more than its fair share of financial setbacks, it’s seeing strong signs of economic growth, said Ryan, of Niles, D-17th. The GM announcement Thursday will be viewed a decade from now as “the day the Mahoning Valley turned the corner,” Ryan said.

GM officials unveiled the new fuel-efficient compact car at the plant.

“The Cruze will build on the already successful Chevy Cobalt,” Peper said. “Our dealers are asking for many more Cobalts than we can build.”

But Peper also was quick to say the Cruze isn’t a Cobalt replacement.

Cobalt sales are up 16 percent year-to-date through July.

Peper declined to comment on the fate of the Pontiac G5, which is also made in Lordstown. Wagoner never addressed the issue.

“We’re here to stay as a company, and we’re here to stay certainly in this part of Ohio,” he said when asked about the company’s future in Lordstown.

Peper praised the Mahoning Valley as a “loyal GM area.”

He described the Cruze as the first in a new line of vehicles between small and midsize cars with “tremendous fuel economy.”

“It will be a ‘tweener’ vehicle” between the small and midsize cars. And, “it will have the best fuel economy in the small-market segment.”

The Cruze is the first of a new family of compact Chevrolets that will focus on quality, fuel efficiency and strong value, Wagoner said.

“The Chevrolet Cruze was designed and engineered by our global teams in Europe and Asia-Pacific, and will be manufactured in those regions in addition to the assembly plant here in Lordstown, Ohio,” Wagoner said. “Our goal for the Chevrolet Cruze is to lead in fuel economy in this very competitive car segment.”

The Cruze will be launched in Europe and Asia next year. It’s scheduled to make its European debut in October at the Paris Motor Show.

Ohio is providing more than $80 million in incentives to GM for the company to build the Cruze.

In summer 2002, the state provided an incentive package of about $63 million — at that time it was the largest ever given by Ohio to a company — to GM to build the Cobalt in Lordstown.

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skolnick@vindy.com