GM Vehicle Designed in China to Debut at Detroit Auto Show
January 11, 2008 | Levent OZLER
General Motors will showcase a vehicle created in part by its Chinese designers at one of the world's top auto shows here next week, GM's top designer said.
The Buick Riviera, a concept car designed to showcase Buick's new global design direction, will make its North American debut next week at the North American International Auto Show, Ed Welburn, vice president, GM Global Design, said Thursday.
The display of the Riviera concept vehicle, first shown in Shanghai, also signals GM's intention to have US designers in Michigan, and Chinese designers in Shanghai, collaborate and compete on all future designs for the Buick brand, Welburn said.
"We're not going to combine the design studios.
Customers in the United States and China are quite different," Welburn said after a pre-show unveiling of the Riviera for a small group of reporters.
"There is a lot of competition between the two studios," he added.
"But we would not have been able to have done the Riviera without the two teams working together."
He said the Riviera concept reflected PATAC's growing role within the GM design family, and China's significance as the world's largest Buick market.
The Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center (PATAC) is an automotive engineering and design joint venture of General Motors and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. Group.
GM has no plans to turn the Riviera into a production car but pieces of the design will be incorporated into the future designs of other vehicles, Welburn said.
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