Geneva — Cadillacs built in Sweden and sold in Bavaria. Chevrolets built in Korea and sold in Romania. The big bruiser Chrysler 300C built in Austria and sold wherever asphalt needs a good spanking.
Never mind the 200-mph Bugattis and stretch Rolls-Royces. The story of the 2005 centennial Geneva Auto Show (through Sunday) is one of vast global alliance-building as car companies go lean, cut development costs and reach out to new markets. Last week, to cite one example, production of the new Toyota Aygo minicar commenced in Kolin in the Czech Republic; the tiny town car is being built alongside the Citroen C1 and the Peugeot 107 and the threesome will vie for sales in the emergent Eastern European market.
GM, still the world's largest car company, is starting an audacious program to make Cadillac a global luxury brand on the same footing as BMW and Mercedes. As a first salvo, GM unveiled the Cadillac BLS concept, a Europe-only, 3-series fighter to be built in Trollhatten, Sweden, alongside its Saab siblings. The Bertone-designed BLS -- 6 inches shorter than the CTS -- will be the first Cadillac available in Europe with a diesel engine (1.9 liters). GM also displayed its Matiz minicar to be built at the GM-Daewoo complex in South Korea and sold at more than 1,500 new Chevrolet (formerly Daewoo) dealerships across Europe.
Chrysler, meanwhile, will reenter the European market next year with a five-door crossover built in Illinois called the Dodge Caliber, seen here in near-production trim. The Caliber will be the platform mate of the next-generation Dodge Neon and Mitsubishi Lancer. The Chrysler 300C -- the brand's best-selling nameplate in North America -- will be built for European consumption beginning in June at the Magna Steyr assembly plant in Graz, Austria.
It's enough globalism to make your head spin. And yet, just as the automotive universe seemed to be reaching a kind of convergence -- where corporate nationality, country of origin and country of sale become irrelevant -- the free-falling dollar threatens to rip up the map again. U.S. currency fundamentals are not promising: as of December 2004, the United States had a $666.2 billion annual trade deficit and a budget deficit equaling 4.4% of gross domestic product, the highest among the G7 nations. The dollar's sustained weakness is causing companies to scramble. BMW and Audi are looking to expand production in the United States to get around the lop-sided exchange rate. BMW will build the X6, a minivan-like crossover, in South Carolina, and Audi is considering a green-field plant to build the new Q7 SUV; neither vehicle was previewed in Geneva.
