Chevy Version of Vue Coming to CAMI
Ward's AutoWorld, Jan 1, 2002 12:00 PM

The Saturn Vue platform is expected to spawn a new Chevy cross/utility vehicle (CUV) and likely a Suzuki version, to be assembled at the CAMI Automotive Inc. plant in Ingersoll, Ont., the joint venture of General Motors Corp. and Suzuki Motor Corp., WAW learns.

The unibody CUV is expected in late 2003 or early 2004, says Rick Brown, general director, Suzuki Affairs Office of GM Asia/Pacific (Japan).

Edgar De Luccas, a GM-Suzuki liaison with GM Asia/Pacific, who works with Suzuki on product planning, also confirms a new light truck for the North American market, to be built at CAMI in the 2003-'04 time frame.

It appears the CUV, expected to share the I-4 or V-6 engines of the Vue and likely mated to a continuously variable transmission, would be a size smaller than the Chevy Traverse, a truck-based vehicle GM also plans to assemble in 2004.

Initial speculation was that GM would assemble the larger Chevy Traverse at CAMI. GM has said the Traverse, to be derived from the midsize truck platform engineered with alliance partner Isuzu Motors Ltd., will not come out of CAMI.

Still to be determined is the fate of the next-generation Chevy Tracker/Suzuki Vitara compact sport/utility vehicle (SUV) currently assembled on a single line at the CAMI plant.

Original plans called for the next generation Tracker/Vitara — last updated for '99 — to utilize three-quarters of the plant's 200,000-unit capacity. But the future of the slow-selling SUVs is far from decided.

CAMI has been underutilized for years. It was dealt a blow in 1999 when GM dropped plans to launch its Delta small car program at CAMI in an experiment in modular assembly dubbed Yellowstone that met with strong union opposition. In the spring of 2001, the Chevrolet Metro/Suzuki Swift car line was discontinued and 500 of its 2,300 workers laid off.