Saturday, May 12, 2012

Opel Plant’s Closing Means Next Zafira To Be Built By PSA, Other Future Plans Fall Into Place

Opel Plant’s Closing Means Next Zafira To Be Built By PSA, Other Future Plans Fall Into Place:

Even though Opel will be tasked with developing the next Citroen C5, PSA will be responding in kind by providing some expertise of their own, in the form of small minivans.

PSA, which builds a number of popular small minivans, like the Citroen Picasso, will be tasked with building the next generation Opel Zafira – the vehicle that, along with the Renault Scenic, practically invented the small MPV segment in Europe.
Autocar reports that production of the Opel Astra will be moving to Poland  as well as Ellsemere Port, UK, leaving Russelheim, former home of the Astra, with only the Insignia…and perhaps the new Citroen C5 midsize sedan, if our detective work is correct. That would leave PSA’s Rennes plant which is apparently getting a “40 million euro investment“, free to produce the new MPV, soothing fears by French unions that the plant would be shuttered.
The main casualty of the affair will be the Bochum plant, which builds the Zafira and Astra. We previously reported on Bochum’s imminent closure, but with the GM-PSA alliance re-jigging European operations to optimize their use of production capacity, it likely just sped up the inevitable.

ICT4PE&D

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