Supplier Magna Shows Interest In Saving Canadian GM Plant

Magna CEO Don Walker said Tuesday that if his company were able to secure multiple deals with manufacturers to build between 20,000 and 50,000 vehicles each per year, it would take a look at Oshawa, or a brand-new plant, as a North American venue for contract manufacturing.

GM plans to end production of the Chevrolet Impala and move pickups to other plants by the end of the year, putting the brakes on 112 years of production at Oshawa. The plant employs about 2,600 workers and has roughly 10 million square feet of manufacturing space.

CANADIANCOMMENTS - 1/16/2019 12:57:55 PM

+1 Boost

Magna International owns Magna Steyr in Austria where they are doing contract manufacturing for new Toyota Bupra. They have also made products for Porsche (Boxster) and others in the past. Perhaps they can find some specialty products to make under contract and utilize this plant.

dumpsty - 1/16/2019 1:20:23 PM

+2 Boost

definitely worth a 2nd look for potential deal. Magna Steyr has had numerous past assembly contracts for production work. This would be a good option for other foreign automakers looking for alternative N.A. assembly options.

MDarringer - 1/17/2019 8:17:15 AM

0 Boost

This would be a massive gamble for Magna with far more potential for fiscal disaster than boon.

qwertyfla1 - 1/17/2019 11:38:46 AM

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Won't happen. Don Walker is a smart guy who climbed the ranks but Magna has lots of idled plants in Ontario and not enough volume to justify buying the Schwa plant which used to employ 40,000 peeps in the heyday. GM has been under utilizing the plant for years and this shutdown was likely many years in the making and likely only postponed until now because of the Billions that Ontario lent to them...

Convert the plant to grow marijuana and maybe then they could meet Canadian supply demands and have ample product for export markets.