Reports that General Motors is considering scrapping the Daewoo badge for its Korean-made cars in Europe and replacing it with the Chevrolet name it uses in North America and China, have been called 'speculative'.

According to the FT, GM sources say the company is leaning towards abandoning the Daewoo name - despite an intensive 18-month advertising campaign designed to rebuild the Daewoo brand. GM bought a 44.6% stake in the Korean carmaker in October 2002 after it went bankrupt.

"It is certainly actively being considered," Daewoo reportedly said, adding: "We would be stupid not to consider it."

However, a Daewoo UK spokesman said this afternoon: 'These reports are speculative. We have nothing to announce at this time. GM Daewoo is 18 months old. It began selling its products as Chevrolet in selected markets only six months ago. In 2003, we sold 80% of our cars as Daewoo and achieved extremely gratifying growth of over 21% across Europe.

'As we expand into further markets in Central and Eastern, for example Poland in May, Chevrolet cars will account for a higher proportion of our overall sales.

'So we are closely monitoring our sales performance throughout Europe in order to evaluate whether it makes sense to work with two brands in the future, but currently we have nothing to announce.'


AM-online editorial team