New jobs and new investment from General Motors Co. are expected in Lansing once the Detroit automaker moves the iconic Chevrolet Camaro to a local assembly line.
The carmaker’s plans to build the next incarnation of the popular muscle car at its Lansing Grand River assembly plant, alongside the Cadillac CTS and ATS cars, are still vague. To bring it here, GM will transfer production of the Camaro from its plant in Oshawa, Ontario — a loss union leaders there consider devastating.
But GM is keeping quiet about the number of new jobs expected here, the amount of money it might pour into the Lansing factory over the next several years and when the roughly 1,500 hourly employees at the Grand River plant can expect to see the additional work. The automaker won’t even disclose the model year of the revamped Camaro, which debuted in 2009.
Yet union leaders, analysts, auto dealers and Lansing’s mayor all say landing the Camaro is a major success for the region’s auto industry.
“That’s job security for us,” said Mike Green, president of United Auto Workers Local 652, which represents hourly workers at the Lansing Grand River plant. “If you look at it, (there are) generations here of building cars. That’s what we do. You go back through the 88s, the 98s, the Cutlasses, the Grand Ams — we’ve built it all here.
“Now the American muscle car coming back — very exciting.”
Exciting for Lansing as a whole, too.
“It strengthens the ability of our economic team to go out and continue to market Lansing as this automotive center,” Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero said. “We have never shrunk from or run from our reputation and our heritage.”
GM officials would not comment beyond a statement saying the production move is needed because of lower capital investment and efficiencies. The ATS and CTS, like the Camaro, are rear-wheel-drive vehicles.
Erin Davis, a Lansing-based GM spokeswoman, said the carmaker expects to save money because the Grand River plant is tooled for rear-wheel-drive vehicles, while the Camaro is the Oshawa plant’s only such model....
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/...312190045/GM-moving-production-Camaro-Lansing