Chevy Kodiak and GMC Topkick to End Production Due to Struggling Sales

The Chevrolet Kodiak and the GMC Topkick will end production according to a press release issued by General Motors on June 8th. With sluggish sales in a sliding economy General Motors had been looking for ways to sell off assets and cut back costs, and the latest victim to the crunch are going to be the Chevy Kodiak and the GMC Topkick. Production will come to an end for both lines, as the medium-duty trucks from General Motors haven't been selling quite as well as they had hoped. With a deal to sell off the brands falling through, it looks like this is the end of the road for the Kodiak and the Topkick.

According to sales figures from the two truck lines that extend through May of 2009, Kodiak sales are down 48% while the Topkick sales have dipped 69%. That is a sign that the market has had its fill of the truck lines, and it has spelled doom for those workers geared towards servicing those particular vehicles. Production of the Chevy Kodiak and the GMC Topkick medium duty trucks appears on schedule to end on July 31, 2009, with no more of either model being produced after that point.

According to an article on Examiner.com, it looked like General Motors and Navistar International had been able to work out a deal where the Kodiak and Topkick would be sold to the secondary company. When the economy took a move to the south in the past couple of years the financial stability of both companies started to look grim, and that the memorandum of understanding for purchase was allowed to expire between the two companies. There are no plans to renew that memorandum of purchase, and thus the deal can be considered completely dead. Due to that, and no other suitors for the Chevy Kodiak and the GMC Topkick, this will be the end of the ride for these models.

As General Motors does everything it can to remain a viable company, this is just another bad chapter for autoworkers in the United States. In prior news Saturn was sold off to Penske Motors, who will discontinue several models, and that was after most of the Hummer line was sold to a Chinese owner. General Motors will definitely be taking on a whole new look and feel in the coming weeks and months, and hopefully there is being enough done behind the scenes as well as out front to keep General Motors and its doors open. There is still a ways to go for GM to recover from bankruptcy scares, but this is another move in the right direction.

Sources: Kodiak Sales Figures