pioneering history and care in English – Autoreview

The General Motors concern became the first company to decide to leave the Russian market: message regarding it appeared back in April, almost a month before Renault passed its Russian assets into state ownership. Care turned out, to put it mildly, ugly, but more on that later. To begin with, remember that this case was not the first time that GM took on the role of a pioneer in Russia.

The concern itself was formed in 1908, at first it included Buick and Oldsmobile. But four years before this significant event, Oldsmobile cars began to be sold in Tsarist Russia! In St. Petersburg, this was done by the Pobeda trading house, and in Moscow by a similar enterprise, Georgy Zhemlichka. The business went well: in 1905, out of a hundred cars registered in Moscow, 40 were Oldsmobiles. And entrepreneur Meller even began producing copies of these American cars called Duxmobile.

In the USSR, the General Motors concern did not officially work, but still left a major mark: the Soviet Moskvich-400 became a trophy copy of the Opel Kadett model. Recall that the German Opel became part of the GM concern back in 1929. We have published detailed investigation regarding how the first Moskvich was created.

In the twentieth century, General Motors became an international player, establishing subsidiaries and factories in many parts of the world, including even Australia. Therefore, it is not surprising that following the collapse of the USSR, he was the first of the world’s automakers to start production activity in Russia. Back in early 1996, the ElAZ-GM joint venture was established, in which the American side owned a 25% stake. And in the spring of 1997 in Yelabuga assembly started Chevrolet Blazer SUVs from Brazilian car kits. But the project quickly stalled, production never became mass, and in 2001 the joint venture broke up.

But just then another joint venture was born – GM-AvtoVAZ. This was the first such collaboration between a foreign company and a major Russian car factory. With American help, in 2002 AvtoVAZ launched the production of a new Niva, which became known as the Chevrolet Niva. True, in addition to this completely domestic model, only the Chevrolet Viva sedan (renamed Opel Astra) managed to visit the assembly line of the GM-AvtoVAZ joint venture: it was produced in 2004-2008.

In 2004, SKD assembly of American GM models was launched by Avtotor in Kaliningrad, and a year later, the concern launched a massive attack on our market, offering Russian customers inexpensive Korean cars under the Chevrolet brand (nee Daewoo). Models Lanos, Aveo and Lacetti quickly made their way to the top of the charts, and the most successful was pre-crisis 2008: then 335 thousand GM cars (including the Chevy Niva) were sold in Russia, and the Chevrolet brand was the leader among foreign cars, and by a wide margin from competitors. Although on a global scale, Russia accounted for only 4% of the corporation’s sales. Finally, in November 2008, GM’s own plant was launched in St. Petersburg: Chevrolet Cruze and Captiva, Opel Astra and Antara cars were produced there in full cycle (with welding and body painting).

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