CHICAGO - A specialty truck maker in Texas will become the first US automaker to build a Chinese-designed vehicle, Tiger Truck said Monday.
Privately-held Tiger Truck has been distributing light-duty, slow-moving trucks in the United States for ChangAn Automobile Group, the third largest Chinese automaker, since 1999.
It has now purchased a manufacturing site in Jasper, Texas with a capacity to build 7,500 vehicles a year on a single shift.
The company said three different trucks will be built at the site and that about 80 percent will be for export, primarily to Latin America and the Caribbean. The first vehicles will be delivered in early 2008.
"In our off-road vehicle class, Tiger has been first to build an automatic transmission, four wheel drive, limited slip differential, electric drive, hybrid drive, and now we will be first to deliver true 'Made in US' vehicles with a Chinese heritage," Mike Ward, founder and chief executive officer of Tiger Truck, said in a statement.
The Jasper facility will assemble a full-sized pickup truck for the US and Canadian off-road market and two trucks for on-road use: a full-sized pickup with a diesel engine that will be sold for the export market and a medium duty truck that will be sold worldwide for on-road use.
Tiger said the 92 acre (37 hectare) site with more than 250,000 square feet (23,000-square meter) of existing indoor manufacturing space has abundant expansion capacity.
03/12/2007 23:15 GMT