General Motors partnership with Daewoo allowed them to sell the imports under the GM name. In 1986 the Daewoo LeMans was sold as the Pontiac LeMans on American soil. The LeMans marked one of Daewoo’s best successes in America, but outside the company quickly became a world-wide player in the auto maket.
Outside of Hyundai, Daewoo was Korea’s largest conglomerate. In the early 1990s Daewoo’s partnership with GM ended and the company began selling vehicles under their own brand. In 1994 Daewoo had some success selling the imported Honda Legend – they called it the Arcadia. Then in 1996 Daewoo unveiled its first product under the Daewoo brand, Daewoo Lanos.
Unfortunately, Daewoo couldn’t sustain their success and experience a fit of financial difficulty towards the end of the 1990s. In 2001 the company was sold to GM and became its own division known as GM Daewoo. However, in the wake of financial difficulty, GM sold this division to the Indian manufacturer Tata Motors in 2004. Today Daewoo continues to build vehicles for other manufacturers, including General Motors and Suzuki. Their success is largely built upon serving as the gateway to China for auto manufacturers, and so far it’s been successful.
