GMDAT engineered all three. Minor sheet metal differences. I’ve been in all three, you can only tell the difference by the sound of the powertrain.

Phew! I’m confused…

No, Lordstown has been in production since the mid-1960’s. The first product out of there was the Impala/Bonneville. Later they switched to Camaro/Firebird production. In the early 1970’s they produced the Vega/Astre, and the later H-body variations, Monza/Starfire, etc. It seems like most of my life they produced the J-body Cavalier/Sunbird/Sunfire, and in 2004 switched to the Delta body Cobalt/G5. At one time they had a van plant (the old Beaumont passenger and the cargo vans), but that got shifted to Flint some time ago.

Vegas were only a small part of the story there. A lot has changed since the 1970’s.

The Vue and Winstorm are both built on the Theta platform but the Vue isn’t a rebadged Winstorm. The Vue is based on the Opel Antara which is built by Daewoo and sold under the Opel brand. The Vue is styled after the Antara but is built in Mexico, much the same as the Saturn Aura is based on the Opel Vectra but is built in Kansas.

On the other hand, the current Chevy Optima is built on the same assembly line as the Daewoo Lacetti, as will the next generation Optima until they ramp up production in Ohio. This new Optima may be a decent car but based on its predecessors and Daewoo’s track record with other small cars they’ve designed and built, they’ll have a huge perception gap to overcome even if it’s so.

http://idc.gmdaewoo.co.kr/gmmcc/gmmcc.jsp?carID=winstorm&contentsID=brandpage

Heavy? Yes. Sucks? Uh, no.

I guess the “best” case scenerio would be that it’s a good car (much better than the stuff Daewoo currently makes), it directly replaces the Cobalt, and it is, in fact, called the Cobalt.

GM has this horrible habit of changing the names of all their cars every three years. Part of the reason that the Civic, Accord, Camry, and Corolla sell so well is because they have so many automatic, repeat buyers, who don’t shop around, they just buy the same car every three to six years. If you drop the name, those automatic sales become “maybes”.

They were given to Chevy dealers when Oldsmobile was folded. I never really understood why, because all they did was make the existing (and more expensive) Chevy models look bad (an Optra had much, much nicer trim than an Impala of the same year). It was even worse when GM was selling the Cavalier, Cobalt, Sunfire (sedan, too), Pursuit (now the G5) and Optra.

Ironically, Lordstown is on the turnpike.

John

Ok. Whoa. I almost had a heart attack. I thought that the Chevy Optra was going to be picked over the next-gen Saturn Astra. So Chevy gets Daewoo, and Saturn gets the Opel? Does the Lacetti ride on the Delta platform?

Pch101 is right — Daewoos are crap cars. Why couldn’t GM have invested in Hyundai instead?

Let’s hope that the candyman in Ohio knows that it will be lobbing its cash into a hole unless those cars can actually sell. If I was the powers that be, I’d have plenty of strings attached, with design and quality control being at least two of them. Really, really thick strings.