Good year for Lordstown cars

Good year for Lordstown cars

It has been a good end of the year for the Lordstown-built Chevrolet Cobalt.

General Motors announced that it sold 17,591 Cobalts last month, 763 more the previous best December in 2005. GM also sold 2,509 of the Cobalt’s sister car, the Pontiac G5, in December. The G5 wasn’t being produced in 2005.

December was also the fifth-straight month that Cobalt sales topped results from the same month a year earlier. It’s also worth noting the sales have continued to improve even as GM has reduced its number of deep-discount sales to auto rental companies.

For all of 2007, Cobalt sales were down nearly 11,000 from 2006. However, GM also sold 27,928 of the G5s in 2007. So overall, more Lordstown-built cars were sold in 2007 than the previous year.

The strong sales of Lordstown’s products — coming in what is the middle of the production run for the first-generation Cobalt — is a testament to the quality of the local product and the commitment to quality by Lordstown workers.

Lordstown’s products earned another gold star on the Internet site cars.com, which rates American made cars on their domestic content. Those who believe in buying American should note that the Cobalt climbed from No. 4 on the list to No. 2, second only to Ford’s F-150 pick-up truck.

The list is dominated by pick-up trucks and SUVs (including the Toyota Tundra, which took Cobalt’s No. 4 spot). Only two other passenger cars, the Pontiac G6 and Chevrolet Malibu, make the list. The G5 obviously has the same domestic content as the Cobalt, but doesn’t make the cut for the cars.com list, apparently because its sales numbers are much smaller than the Chevrolet. Additional information is available at cars.com by clicking on American-made index under the Top Ten lists.