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Volga Siber comes on production line

19 August 2008 11:05 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Nijat Mustafayev â€“ APA-Economics. GAZ Group has launched mass production of Volga Siber, a new Chrysler Sebring-based car model. GAZ plant in Nizhny Novgorod plans to make up to 65 000 Volga Sibers annually.
Volga Siber is 70% assembled from foreign spare parts made by Magna, Bosch, TRW, Valeo, ZF, etc. GAZ Group accounts on further localization of production, providing the quality of Russian-made components improves.
The Siber has been under development for two years and is a modified version of the former US-built Chrysler Cirrus. That model was replaced by the Sebring/Cirrus sedan (US & Canada/Mexico) for North America’s 2007 model year.
The then DaimlerChrysler shipped the production line to Russia, having sold it to GAZ in April 2006. Engines are provided by Chrysler LLC, these being sourced from Mexico. Earlier this year, GAZ stated that it eventually plans to build up to 65,000 units of what is now known to be the Volga Siber from 2010. The car itself debuted at the Moscow motor show in August 2007.
Returning to powertrains, to start with, only a manual transmission/2.0-litre version is available but automatics plus 2.4 and 2.7 litre cars will go on sale in late 2008. GAZ plans to build 20,000 units in 2008 and 40,000 in 2009. The plant’s capacity is 100,000 units per annum.