Volkswagen AG to acquire 51% stake in Proton

[DetroitNut90]

German automaker Volkswagen — which already owns Audi, Bentley, Seat, Skoda, Lamborghini, and Bugatti — has agreed to buy a majority stake in Malaysia's Proton, according to a report by XFN-Asia...Today's report indicates VW would buy a 51 percent stake in the company, which it could conceivably expand in the future. An official announcement is expected on February 8th, the news agency said.

Leftlane News

[Z-06]

I honestly think it was good that the GM guys did not get it. I think GM needs to focus on its own. 2006 has been a good year, but it can be better. With concentration on its core brands, and planning their expansion and profitability will help GM in the long run, rather than getting another cash starved automaker and making gold out of it.

[MyerShift]

I guess I am glad that GM didn't get this too, but I wish they could still get Lotus.

Volkswagen is even more complicated and troublesome than GM.

Interesting to see what and how they are going to make this work, especially with all of the labour and union issues, lack of excellent profitability (Audi does well compared to VW anymore, don't they?), and the power struggle going on within the company becasue of Piech and Porsche.

Well, Volkswagen now technically has Lotus too, right?

[Northstar]

The only good I saw in acquiring Proton was the manufacturing plants that would have given GM another low-cost place to manufacture cars. I also think it would have been easy to "remake" the Proton lineup by just re-badging Daewoos. Lotus would have been cool to have, but at the end of the day, does anyone really care?

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

Call me sentimental, but I would've liked to see GM get the stake in Proton just to see them get access to Lotus like back in the 90s.

But, logically I'm sure staying out of it was the better move.

[RJB]

I think VW is spiraling out of control, they need to focus all their attention on the U.S. market and fixing that before deciding to grow even bigger!

[ZL-1]

I wonder if and why Porsche sanctioned this.

[Imaj]

I wish GM had acquired them, they'd benefited out of them in having a producer of low cost vehicles, which in turn yields exponential growth in key markets like China and India, not to forget everyone's darling Lotus and how GM might benefit from their engineering capabilities.

[ZL-1]

I wish GM had acquired them, they'd benefited out of them in having a producer of low cost vehicles, which in turn yields exponential growth in key markets like China and India.

Chevrolet Spark

[LosAngeles]

Yeah, I want GM to get Lotus back (eternal soft spot for the Lotus Carlton). Should have never sold them in the first place. Proton was little more than a knockoff provider, and GM's core products are well-saturated in the places they sell, could care less about them.

[thegriffon]

I wonder if and why Porsche sanctioned this.

To kill Lotus of course.

[thegriffon]

If they are smart they will persuade Proton to transfer Lotus to VW, merge Lotus Engineering with Porsche, and use Lotus as the basis for the Audi R6, R4 and microboxster.