GM Offloads Van Production to Boost Midsize Pickup Assembly

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

To keep up with demand for its midsize pickups, General Motors signed a deal to have Navistar International Corp. take on the task of assembling its commercial vans.

The agreement, released yesterday, will see Navistar assemble the Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana in a Springfield, Ohio plant starting early next year. Booting the vans out of GM’s Wentzville, Missouri plant frees up capacity to build more Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon pickups.

According to the Wall Street Journal, GM first approached AM General LLC to handle its van production, but those talks went nowhere.

With more room in Wentzville, GM will be able to tailor production to demand and (it hopes) regain lost market share. The automaker’s share of the light truck market dropped 2.3 percent this year compared to the same period in 2015. Last month that saw sales in all GM divisions slide sharply.

To produce the vans, Navistar plans to hire about 300 new employees and re-start an assembly line that sat idle at the Springfield plant for some time. GM already tapped the truck manufacturer to produce medium-duty commercial trucks starting in 2018.

The van contract is good news for Navistar, which just reported its first quarterly profit in four years. The company’s fortunes slipped due to lower demand for Class 8 commercial vehicles.

After re-entering the market in the fall of 2014, U.S. sales of GM’s Canyon/Colorado twins hit 114,505 units last year.

[Sources: Wall Street Journal]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • Lou_BC Lou_BC on Jun 10, 2016

    GM lost 2.3% market share in the pickup segment even with the Colorado/Canyon? No wonder they have ramped up the attack adds on Ford's aluminum pickup.

  • Jeff S Jeff S on Jun 11, 2016

    I don't care that much for the Chevy ads nor do I care for any attack ads. Lou do you know where GM lost the sales? Was it fleet? Mary Barra came out recently and said that GM was reducing its fleet sales? If Colorado/Canyon are losing sales then why is GM expanding production of them? Why is Ford reconsidering a new Ranger if the sales are not that good in the midsize market? There still is a shortage of new Colorado/Canyons which tells me that the demand is still there. I thought you were beyond being a fan boy but maybe you have your Ford moments. Maybe its just me but I am more interested in everyone improving their products and having more choice available. I like competition.

  • Jeff S Jeff S on Jun 11, 2016

    I don't care that much for the Chevy ads nor do I care for any attack ads. Lou do you know where GM lost the sales? Was it fleet? Mary Barra came out recently and said that GM was reducing its fleet sales? If Colorado/Canyon are losing sales then why is GM expanding production of them? Why is Ford reconsidering a new Ranger if the sales are not that good in the midsize market? There still is a shortage of new Colorado/Canyons which tells me that the demand is still there. I thought you were beyond being a fan boy but maybe you have your Ford moments. Maybe its just me but I am more interested in everyone improving their products and having more choice available. I like competition. I do agree with Big Al that increase sales cannot be sustained because cheap loans cannot last indefinitely and because the pent up demand for consumers who delayed purchasing a new vehicle during the 2008 Economic fiasco has for the most part been satisfied. I don't take great comfort in FCAs decline and wish they were doing better.

  • Bullnuke Bullnuke on Jun 11, 2016

    The Springfield Navistar plant was the winner of the "whip-saw" between Springfield and the Fort Wayne Navistar plant some 30-years ago. For many years some of the displaced Fort Wayne workers were bused down to Springfield on Sunday night, worked Monday through Friday living in trailers and returned to Fort Wayne on Friday night. The Springfield plant has a history as a labor minefield and some variable assembly quality issues. Some of my high school buds went to work there and told tales of lug nuts in the tires before mounting as well as empty beer cans inside the fenders of high-dollar vehicles to give the correct new truck feel and "rattle". I can remember that the "breakdown lot" at the end of assembly was always 2/3 more full than the "delivery lot" out at the plant on North US 68.

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