The process of closing Saab will begin in January, but General Motors will not put a timescale on the winding up of the company or say how much it will cost.
GM Vice President John Smith said, “there’s no definite plan of how long it might take.”
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Smith also said that GM had an idea of how much the closure would cost, but wouldn’t disclose the amount. However, it is likely to be considerably more than the short-term cost of keeping Saab open.
Up to 3400 people are employed by Saab globally, and the firm has 1100 dealers.
It only has one manufacturing site, at the firm’s Trollhatten base, but the 9-5 and 9-4X were due to be made in Germany and Mexico respectively.
Both of these cars would have been factored into the factory’s profit forecasts – pulling them out will affect the future of the plants.
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Re: Saab closure to begin in January
If GM have sold the production lines for the old models to the Chinese , how are they going to provide spares-backup for the cars already in service? Or do GM not give a sh*t ? I know many Vectra parts will fit ( too many ) but the body panels and trim were pure Saab.