ROFL: Opel Wants To Export To China And Australia, Again

Did you hear the one about Opel's latest scheme to stave off disaster? Don't read this article while driving or operating heavy machinery. Opel wants to sell 30,000 cars in China – eventually. Or rather "step by step," as Opel CEO Karl-Friedrich Stracke told Germany's Handelsblatt today. (Not on-line, therefore via Reuters.) This is not the first time Opel had announced plans for China. Two years ago, Opel announced plans to export cars to China and Australia. With little success. In GM China's 2010 year-end sales report, there is no Opel. In the 2011 sales report, a grand total of 4,864 Opels are mentioned, most of them the Antara SUV – which was imported from Korea. That's not exactly what Opel workers in Bochum and Rüsselsheim had in mind when they demanded the opening of export markets. Stracke may be able to flummox the Handelsblatt reporter, but not his workers who had never seen the developed-in-Korea trucklet. Yesterday, F.K. Stracke sold old wine in even older wineskins. He plans, says Stracke, Opel exports to China and Australia. Until that happens in significant numbers (don't hold your breath,) Opel will remain "almost solely dependent on a European market that has shrunk for the fifth year in a row," says Reuters. from The Truth About Cars http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com

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