Chevrolet's European roots

Press Release

Quarter Million Chevrolets Have Been Assembled in Europe

·          The company's founder, Louis Chevrolet, was born in Switzerland

·          From 1924 to 1968, General Motors had four European assembly plants

The fine-sounding French name 'Chevrolet' give the European roots of the brand away. But is was not only the man himself – Louis Chevrolet (1878 – 1941), racing driver, car designer – who hailed from Europe: From 1924 to the end of the 1960s, nearly a quarter of a million Chevrolets were assembled from kits in Denmark, Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland for these markets.

The brand with the well-known "bow-tie" in its logo still relies to this day on European know-how and European-made components: For example, the German suppliers, Siemens Automotive (airbag systems, emission control) and Bosch (ABS), were development partners for the Chevrolet Lacetti/Nubira, and the star Italian designers, Giugiaro and Pininfarina, came up with the styling in collaboration with the Korean design centre.

Intrepid racing driver and inspired designer – Louis Chevrolet

At the turn of the century, aged 22, Louis Chevrolet, the son of a watchmaker born in the Swiss town of La Chaux-de-Fonds, immigrated to America. Chevrolet, whose weakness for cars came to light early on, completed an apprenticeship as a mechanic in the New World and began racing cars in 1905. He recorded many victories and broke many records, but he also had an endless number of serious accidents – he actually spent three of his 15 active motor-racing years in hospital. When his brother Gaston was killed in a race in 1920, Louis ended his motor-racing career.

Chevrolet, together with the later head of General Motors, William "Billy" Durant (1861 – 1947), founded the "Chevrolet Motor Car Company of Michigan" on November 8, 1911. Just one year later, the first model – the "Classic Six" – appeared on the market under the new brand name. In 1914, the partners quarrelled about the positioning of the company, with Chevrolet wanting to build exclusive vehicles and Durant more in favour of popular cars. Who won the dispute is well enough known, because since then, the name Chevrolet has been synonymous with high-quality but affordable vehicles.

The argument escalated when Durant restructured the company while Louis Chevrolet was away on vacation, and later expressed the wish that, in accordance with his position, he should smoke cigars instead of cheap cigarettes, whereupon Louis retorted: "I've sold you my car and I've sold you my name, but I will not sell you my person." He left the firm in 1914, competed in races and built aircraft engines and cars (including the "Frontenac" model).

He never profited from the brand's success – more than 175 million vehicles have been sold since the company was founded – because he had sold his name and his share package. "We made a joke out of it by saying if we only got one dollar or fifty cents or a quarter of a dollar or even just a nickel for every car we sold, how rich we would be!" said Renée Goeke, a granddaughter of Louis Chevrolet, in a program on Swiss television.

Born in Denmark – the first Chevrolet from Europe

It was exactly 80 years ago that the first vehicle from General Motors was produced outside the United States and Canada: On January 7, 1924, a Chevrolet truck left the production line in the Danish capital of Copenhagen. A total of 122,737 Chevrolets were built up until 1951 at General Motors International A/S, which was founded in 1923. About half of them, namely 58,894, were cars.

This Chevrolet was sold in the Scandinavian and Baltic states and in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary and Russia. The plant in Copenhagen – the internal

code was initially "XB", after the War, "I" and "IC" – received the CKD sets
(CKD = Completely Knocked Down) initially from the traditional Tarrytown factory near New York, and, from 1925, from the Bloomfield plant in the US state of New Jersey.

Antwerp/Belgium – assembly in an abbey and a velodrome

General Motors' second overseas assembly plant was a firm called "General Motors Continental", which was founded in Belgium in 1924 and was initially based at an old abbey in Antwerp on Fortuinstraat. The first Chevrolet was built there on April 2, 1925. Demand was soon greater than the daily capacity of max. 25 vehicles, so production was shifted to the Antwerp cycling stadium in July 1926.

The move to the velodrome was not to be the last: In November 1929, the operation moved to a new assembly plant in the port of Antwerp. New buildings were dedicated in 1953 and then again in 1967 (plant I and plant II) after bombs had destroyed the port and the company's premises during the Second World War.

How many of the 178,072 vehicles assembled in Antwerp between 1925 and 1940 bore a "bow-tie" in their logo is not known, but the exact number of post-war Chevrolets produced from 1946 to 1959 is well documented: 78,162.

Antwerp is now the location of one of the biggest Opel and Vauxhall factories. At Opel Belgium, the five-door version and the Caravan of the new Astra generation are currently being made. The Antwerp Car Processing Center (ACPC), the company that prepares the Chevrolet models produced at GM DAT for sale in Europe, is based in the port of the Belgian metropolis. Arriving by ship from South Korea, the cars are dewaxed, checked for transport damage and fitted with, for example, the audio system ordered by the customer.

Nearly three decades of production in Stockholm/Sweden

The production planners at General Motors evidently had a penchant for the north of Europe, because almost exactly four years after the Danish assembly plant went into production, a plant was opened in Stockholm on January 26, 1928.

Up until 1957, the workers at "General Motors Nordiska A.B." built a total of 211,300 cars and trucks bearing the Chevrolet, Cadillac, Vauxhall and Opel names. How many of these were Chevrolets is not known.

"Montage Suisse" – Production in Biel/Switzerland

General Motors' arrival in Switzerland in the fall of 1934 apparently began with an unforgettable scene when, carrying a handful of clay, the then GM President, Alfred P. Sloan (1875 – 1966), said to the Swiss President, Dr. Guido Müller, after viewing the site and signalling his approval for the foundation of a plant in Biel, "I am bringing you the earth on which we will build our factory."

This is not surprising in view of the favourable conditions under which the factory was built: The town in the Canton of Bern presented the car manufacturer with a turnkey factory for two million Swiss francs (equal to around 1.3 million euros today). Beforehand, in a referendum, the people had adamantly expressed their approval of a loan for the building. The project created 300 new jobs and, on February 5, 1936, the first GM model left the factory gates in Biel – it was a Buick.

Chevrolets were also built in Switzerland – a total of 26,858 between 1936 and 1968. They were sold in Switzerland, Germany and Austria, and can be recognized by the three-pronged logo representing the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau peaks, and bearing the words "Montage Suisse".

General Motors Suisse produced vehicles in Biel up until 1975, but with the accession to the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and following the association agreement with the EU, building from kits – a process which had been introduced in the mid-thirties to bypass the high import duties on completed vehicles – was no longer worthwhile.

Two sites – production in Berlin/Germany

In September 1927 the 5000th Chevrolet assembled in Germany left the factory in Berlin-Wittenau. “General Motors GmbH” had started production only at the beginning of that year. And by the end of 1927 it already was relocated to Berlin-Borsigwalde with increased capacity due to high demand: While in the middle of 1927 approximately 1,400 vehicles per month left the factory, output was already raised to 2,000 cars per month by the beginning of 1928.

Although production included cars of the Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile and Oakland brands, the majority were Chevrolet models like the 11/30 and the 6. Unfortunately demand did not remain steady. Caused by the world economic crisis of 1929, business decreased, and the plant finally was shut down at the 31st of October 1931.

Steadily increasing local content - production in Warsaw/Poland

In Poland, General Motors produced Chevrolet models at two sites as well: In the fall of 1929 the plant in Wolska Street 103 in Warsaw opened, while the second factory in the suburb of Wola started production from 1937. In 1936 General Motors had closed a contract with local company “Lilpop Rau & Loewenstein S.A.” about the production of vehicles of the Cadillac, La Salle, Buick, Oakland, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Chevrolet, GMC, Opel and Vauxhall brands. The Polish workers were trained upfront at “General Motors International A/S in Copenhagen. Among the four-door Chevrolet models produced in Wola were the Master Sedan, Master De Luxe, Master Touring Sedan and Imperial Limousine.

Increasingly, components were not imported any more but produced locally. It started with paint from Włocławek, batteries out of the “Tudor” plant in Piastów and Stomil brand tires from Poznań. The company also cooperated with Polish companies like headlight producer “A. Marciniak” or transmission specialist “John” from Łódź. An engine plant in Lublin was opened in 1938 to supply six cylinder engines to “Lilpop Rau & Loewenstein S.A.”. Exactly 159 components of Polish origin were used for production in June 1939. But by the end of 1939 production was stopped due to the war.

Overview of all Chevrolets assembled in Europe