Whether Germans like it or not, GM won't be going away

The only question I have about General Motors Co.'s incipient spin-off of its Adam Opel GmbH unit in Germany is this: Are they popping corks on German Sekt or the old Russian equivalent, that sparkling wine from Georgia favored in Soviet times?

For the better part of 80 years -- and, Lord knows, certainly for the past 15 -- so many of the Germans I knew who worked for Opel wanted nothing more than to slip the yoke of American oppression they so readily blamed for all that ailed their beloved Blitz, the yellow company logo struggling to restore its luster.

Detroit didn't understand Europe. Detroit didn't understand diesels. Detroit, determined to make Cadillac a credible global luxury brand, didn't bother consulting the very people on its payroll -- Opel engineers and product guys -- who knew a thing or two about that business because they lived and worked in the middle of it.

And the Russians, judging from my experience in the early part of the decade reporting Opel's first joint venture in Togliatti near the banks of the Volga, couldn't engineer modern vehicles for finicky Western tastes (even if they could throw a mean bash, vodka and all, on a river cruiser).

In every case, the Germans had a point. Trouble was, they weren't the only points, as the deal-makers in Ruesselsheim and Berlin have learned so well in the run-up to the deal that will sell 55 percent of GM's Opel to Magna International Inc. of Canada and Sberbank, Russian financial investors with ties to the automaker GAZ and, more importantly, the Kremlin.

And still the Germans aren't free of the Americans. Like it or not, bailouts and bankruptcy or not, GM used the protracted talks with Magna, the Russians and the German government to drive home several inconvenient points:

First, that maintaining GM's global footprint across the Eurasian continent is as much (if not more) about retaining unfettered control of the marketing and production rights to its largely Korean-built Chevy vehicles as it is retaining access to Opel's dealer network, vehicle engineering and product development expertise at headquarters west of Frankfurt.

Second, that successfully divorcing Opel from GM after 80 years of a rocky marriage isn't so much a permanent break as it is a mutually convenient separation. Under the proposed new ownership structure, GM retains a blocking minority stake in Opel and, theoretically, the connective tissue needed to hold its global network together.

Third, that a 21st-century automaker doesn't need to own an asset outright to reap the benefits of its strengths. Until its recent wind-down to a roughly 10 percent stake, Ford Motor Co. controlled barely more than 33 percent of Mazda Motor Corp. but used its core engineering to form the backbone of its North American car lines.

Among the dirty little secrets of the Opel deal, announced Thursday, is the fact that GM should emerge on the other side with access to the most valuable pieces of Opel, and leave the politically charged plants and people problems to Magna, the Russians and the Germans, who've steadfastly believed they could succeed where GM couldn't.

By doing what differently? It isn't easy in Europe for a mass-market volume brand that cannot command premium prices on vehicles built in high-cost Germany and the United Kingdom, to name two. Nor does Opel have a healthy light commercial vehicle business to drive sales, an advantage Ford, Fiat SpA and, to some extent, Renault SA routinely exploit.

The Germans pushing the deal, from headquarters in Ruesselsheim to Berlin, know this, of course. They know Opel needs a bigger production presence in Russia and the lower-cost Central Asian republics to drive sales, but they're coming up short in this deal until GAZ gets in the game. They get the new GM plant in St. Petersburg and the JV in Togliatti, but not the JVs in Kaliningrad and Uzbekistan, nor rights to market Chevy.

"Even if we're not a majority owner of Opel, we'll still have a significant position in Europe through Chevy," John F. Smith, GM's group vice president for business development, said in an interview. Yes, they will -- and a chunk of Opel, which probably is all they need.

dchowes@detnews.com">dchowes@detnews.com (313) 222-2106 Daniel Howes' column runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Catch him Fridays with Paul W. Smith on 760-WJR.