After more than 20 years, the Opel plant in Gliwice finished the production of the famous Astra. The last model left the production line today. During this time, the factory produced more than 1.8 million units of this model.
The last Opel Astra will leave the factory in Gliwice today. The successor will be produced in Germany.
“The first car we produced here stayed with us in the factory. The last model, on the other hand, will be sold. It’s a private customer from Poland because we tried to keep this car in the country, to make it closer to us. This person will have had the car by the end of this year” – said Andrzej Korpak, head of the Gliwice plant.
During more than 20 years of production, almost 3 million cars left the assembly line in Gliwice, of which the popular Astra was just over 1 million 800 thousand units. This is the only plant in Europe where all generations of this model were produced.
“This model is no longer being produced here because it’s time for generation six. And the sixth generation will be electric,” explains President Andrzej Korpak.
But the end of passenger car production does not mean the end of the plant itself. On the contrary – it has been expanded because next year the production of transit vans will start there. Preparations to launch this production will take 4 months. At that time, new cars will already be assembled in Gliwice, but for now only in a pre-production, test form. Now it is supposed to be a few cars a day, and then this number is to systematically increase up to 150 cars every day.
The Stellantis concern, which owns Opel, wants to start serial production of transit vans in the factory next to the Astra assembly plant from April next year. The Opel Movano, Peugeot Boxer, Fiat Ducato and Citroen Jumper will roll off the assembly line. Cars for the UK market are also to be built there.