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Collision Repair Tempe Explores GM’s $439 Million Investment in Corvette Paint Shop Expansion

Now this is a change we can believe in. Earlier this week, this collision repair Tempe shop learned about General Motor’s announcement to invest a whopping $5.4 billion dollars in order to upgrade their U.S.-based factories. A significant chunk of that funding will be diverted to their Bowling Green, Kentucky Chevrolet Corvette plant, in which they will spend somewhere around $439 million to update the facilities and add more sophisticated machinery. This is being made in addition to the $135 million they already spent over the last few years to modernize and make assemblies more efficient.

MAKE WAY FOR STINGRAYS

So let’s get down to it. GM’s reasoning for the plant upgrades? To prepare for production of the 2015 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, the slim, beautifully sculpted sport car that features a number of small nods to the original mid-1960s version. The most noticeable is the body shape which is heavily influenced by the original version; while a little less angular than its twentieth century predecessor, some of our collision repair Tempe technicians think it appears more aerodynamic yet still features the same fast, impressive silhouette as the original.

In fact, earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray sales are up. So far this year, they sold nearly 12,000 units, an amount that is 2.5 percent higher than their sales in 2014 and they are expected to exceed the 34,000 sales from that year. This is good news for the auto company which leads us into discussing their recent infrastructure investment.

INVESTMENT IMPORTANCE

As this collision repair Tempe shop mentioned earlier, GM has invested massive amounts of funds to upgrading many of their U.S.-based manufacturing plants, including the Corvette plant in Kentucky. One of the major investments of that money is going to create a large, dedicated paint shop on the premises. The enormous shop, estimated to be approximately 450,000 square feet and roughly half the size of the standing plant, will be the new home for painting all of their manufactured Corvettes while also saving existing jobs within the plant.

According to the news, construction on the new paint shop is expected to begin this summer and finish in 2017, just in time for that year’s models. Our collision repair Tempe also learned about the number of new technologies and Eco-friendly methods GM is implementing into the manufacturing process, including scrubbers to reduce the amount of wastes going down the drain and high-efficiency ovens that will reduce energy use while still creating a beautiful finish.

These are improvements our collision repair Tempe shop is excited to learn about because, as an American icon, General Motors has the potential to show other leading vehicle manufacturers the overall value of investing in their infrastructure. It can not only increase production value (always one of the main goals of such businesses) but has the possibility of embracing more Eco-friendly technologies and methods, keeping jobs in the plant and in the community, as well as still being able to produce a beautiful, iconic car of a quality their customers come to expect.