Previous | Next :: GM Sells Up in Europe : Car Sale Processing Atlanta : GA | September 10, 2009, 11:59 pm

Late today it was announced that GM would sell its European car divisions to a Canadian Russian Consortium built around the Canadian car parts company Magna.

This news comes on the same day as the British Government released an enquiry into the collapse of MG Rover in which a group other than a classic car company took over the ailing car factories in Birmingham ....... The 4 main executives paid themselves 40 million pounds in 5 years and the 6000 workers all lost their jobs when the group collapsed.......

The GM news was announced by German Chancellor Angela Merkel today in Germany ...... the Germans wanted this deal.... they are putting money into it to protect the German GM brand Opel.... Employing a large number of Germans......... The British workers at the GM UK division Vauxhall... were hoping GM would not sell....... they are now likely to be shut down.

Vauxhall has been struggling for a long time....... I went to one of their plants threatened with closure on one of my very first paid assignments..... when I was a student nearly 20 years back....... I shot a sad black and white picture of a man on a bike leaving the plant...... it was used in many papers....... The plant survived then.... Maybe it will again........

The workers were nice to me on their picket lines... as at the time I owned an old Vauxhall Astra built at the plant.

I would get the old picture out....... but Im not sure I actually have it anywhere............ and I am totally sure it is not digitized.

Cheers Jez XXXXXXX