GM’s Cobalt paved the way for Lordstown plant’s future

When it was unveiled in Decem- ber 2003 at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show, the Chevrolet Cobalt was received by many industry experts with apprehension. After all, the vehicle General Motors was touting as its offering in the highly competitive compact market was being built in the Lordstown plant — with its blemished history.

But as we said in an editorial marking the unveiling, the Cobalt “presents the Mahoning Valley with a great opportunity to show the nation and the world that this region can compete with the best of them when it comes to manufacturing and that the business climate has never been better.”

Six-and-a-half years later, the Lordstown assembly plant and the Valley not only have proved the detractors wrong, but have firmly established that a new era has dawned.

General Motors now considers the Lordstown complex one of its most valuable and efficient facilities. Hence, last week’s final production of the Cobalt marked not only the end of a highly successful run, but the beginning of a new chapter in auto manufacturing in this skilled-labor region.

GM has invested $350 million in updating the plant to prepare for the highly anticipated Chevrolet Cruze, which will hit the showrooms next month.

The Lordstown complex was in competition with several others around the country, but it won the grand-prize sweepstakes largely because of the Cobalt. To be sure, the willingness of the unions to make major concessions on work rules and compensation packages, the nationally recognized management-labor relationship and the full-court press by local and state governments and community leaders made a difference.

But in the end, the success of the Cobalt — it was consistently one of the best selling cars in GM’s fleet — proved to decision-makers in Detroit that they had made the right decision in investing $1 billion in the Lordstown assembly plant and new paint shop to launch the successor to the Chevrolet Cavalier and Pontiac Sunfire.

The future

Thus today, the new General Motors, the one that President Barack Obama came to the Valley to tout during a visit to Lordstown, is banking on the Cruze to continue making inroads in the compact car market.

GM’s commitment to the Valley has become the catalyst for other economic development endeavors.

The investment of $650 million by the French company Vallourec in a state-of-the-art steel making facility on land adjacent to its V&M Star plant in Youngstown is huge by any measure. And it is not far-fetched to believe that the decision by the board of directors in Paris to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in this region was influenced by GM’s trust and faith in the Lordstown plant and the Valley.

After all, the $1.35 billion invested in less than a decade by the world’s leading auto manufacturer sends a strong message to the business community.

Labor and management at Lordstown have every reason to be proud of the fact that the blemished past is becoming a distant memory

We have no doubt the success of the Cobalt will be matched by the Cruze — and that’s good for our future.