General Motors will soon rid itself of the Pontiac and Saturn brands, but at least one model from each marque could carry on. General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson revealed earlier on Monday that GM would be open to offers for its Wilmington, Delaware plant – the factory responsible for producing the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky.
Henderson revealed the news at a press event in Detroit earlier today. “If someone were to approach us with a proposal that made good sense for our people, we would be open,†he said. “We are not out actively trying to market a plant, per se. But if a party were interested, we’d be very open to this and would encourage it.â€
Henderson noted GM hasn’t received any offers for the plant.
However, with the news that the Wilmington plant is up for sale, GM could garner some bids in the coming months. Although the Kappa platform that underpins the Solstice and Sky has never been particularly profitable for GM, both nameplates have sold in decent numbers. In 2007 the Pontiac Solstice outsold the Mazda MX-5 outright by more than 1,700 units, with the Solstice and Sky nameplates combining for 19,901 sales in 2008, compared to the MX-5’s total sales of 10,977 units — according to Automotive News.
Moreover, the Solstice line just launched a coupe variant, which would give the buyer of the Wilmington plant a brand new model. Pontiac only plans to build about 1,000 examples of the Solstice Coupe.
