Delta Motor Corporation was a South African car manufacturer, which was created through a management buy-out after
General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
(GM)
divested
In finance and economics, divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset for financial, ethical, or political objectives or sale of an existing business by a firm. A divestment is the opposite of an investment. Divestiture is a ...
from South Africa in 1986. It was headed by former GM executive, Bob Price, who had returned to South Africa from Detroit. He had previously served as General Motors South Africa's managing director between 1971 and 1974, and later became president of Motors Trading Corp., a subsidiary that engages in international trade on behalf of GM.
Delta continued to use the
Opel
Opel Automobile GmbH (), usually shortened to Opel, is a German automobile manufacturer which has been a subsidiary of Stellantis since 16 January 2021. It was owned by the American automaker General Motors from 1929 until 2017 and the PSA Grou ...
,
Isuzu and
Suzuki
is a Japan, Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Minami-ku, Hamamatsu, Japan. Suzuki manufactures automobiles, motorcycles, All-terrain vehicle, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), outboard motor, outboard marine engines, wheelchairs ...
brands under licence from GM as well as pay for the supply of assembly kits.
It also assembled vehicles for export to other
right hand drive
Left-hand traffic (LHT) and right-hand traffic (RHT) are the practices, in bidirectional traffic, of keeping to the left side or to the right side of the road, respectively. They are fundamental to traffic flow, and are sometimes referred to ...
markets in the region, such as Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Kenya and Mauritius.
Following the transition to universal suffrage in the 1990s, GM acquired a 49 percent stake in the company in 1997 and in 2004 the company once again became a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors, reverting to its original name,
General Motors South Africa
General Motors South Africa (Pty) Ltd , or GMSA, was a wholly owned subsidiary of American automobile manufacturer General Motors. It manufactured and distributed automobiles under the Chevrolet, Opel and Isuzu brands. The deal with Isuzu was ...
.
GM TO SLIP INTO DELTA’S DRIVING SEAT
''CAR magazine'', October 30th 2003
See also
*Samcor
The South African Motor Corporation, more commonly known as Samcor, was a South African car manufacturer created in 1985 through the merger of Ford Motor Company of Canada's South African subsidiary and Sigma Motor Corporation (previously known a ...
References
External links
General Motors South Africa
General Motors factories
Car manufacturers of South Africa
1986 establishments in South Africa
Defunct manufacturing companies of South Africa
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