GM To End Medium-Duty Truck Production

GM To End Medium-Duty Truck Production

DETROIT -- General Motors announced Monday it will stop making the medium-duty Chevrolet Kodiak and GMC TopKick trucks July 31 as it has found no buyer for the operations.

The trucks are built at a GM plant in Flint, Michigan, which also builds the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups.

The factory employs about 2,100 people, with most of its production in pickups. Last year it made more than 22,000 medium-duty trucks for GM and Isuzu.

GM had shopped for a buyer for its commercial truck operations for four years, once thinking it was worth as much as $1 billion. The automaker struck a deal with

Navistar International Corp. to buy it in December 2007. But the Chicago-based truck- and engine maker Navistar backed out last summer when vehicle sales, especially truck sales, and the economy began to plummet as gas prices skyrocketed. Navistar also happened to be engaged in an acrimonious diesel-engine development and supply dispute with Ford Motor Co.

GM's medium-duty lineup consists of the Chevrolet Kodiak and GMC Topkick in the Class 4 to 8 truck market. But with just a single chassis in a market with competitors offering multiple models, GM was not able to succeed, company CEO Fritz Henderson told Dow Jones on Monday.

"We were a one-truck company competing with global companies that have a full portfolio," Henderson was quoted as saying.

Michelle Krebs:  is Editor-in-Chief of AutoObserver.com. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.