GM Korea’s Bupyeong plant sits on the site of what is generally reckoned to be South Korea’s first modern car factory. Saenara Motor built a production line there in 1962 to assemble a licensed version of the Nissan Bluebird, and the plant then passed through a string of owners and names over six decades - Shinjin Motors, which partnered briefly with Toyota; Saehan, formed with General Motors as a shareholder; and Daewoo Motors, after the Daewoo Group bought a controlling stake in 1978. Daewoo Motors collapsed with the group in 2000, and General Motors bought most of its automotive assets in 2002, forming GM Daewoo Auto & Technology. The company was renamed GM Korea in 2011.
GM Korea today builds the Chevrolet Trailblazer at Bupyeong, largely for export to the United States. The plant is GM Korea’s main assembly and engine site, with an estimated annual capacity of around 440,000 vehicles, making it the larger of the company’s two Korean vehicle-assembly plants alongside Changwon. A second Bupyeong plant, which had built the previous Trax generation and the Malibu sedan, closed in November 2022 as GM Korea consolidated production onto its more modern lines; the site covered here is the plant that remains active.
GM’s shareholders in GM Korea today are General Motors itself, the state-owned Korea Development Bank, and China’s SAIC, a stake that dates to the original 2002 Daewoo acquisition. A 2018 rescue package that kept GM Korea running carries a commitment against General Motors exiting the country that runs to 2028.
