DDA and Deere move closer
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• Detroit Diesel Allison, the diesel engine and automatic transmission division of General Motors, has agreed to extend its year-long engine marketing agreement with Deere and Company into a full joint venture company.
The new company has yet to be named, but it is ex pected to become operational by January 1987. It is already dear that it will rank among the world's largest diesel engine manufacturers, with about 6,000 employees and annual sales of about 1.5 billion dollars (21 billion).
The joint venture will have a range of engines from 37 to 1,500kW (50 to 2000hp). Included in the deal are DDA's Redford plant and Romulus engineering and parts centre in the USA and Deere's plants in the USA and France.
Also included are the tools and machinery used to manufacture the Detroit Diesel 8.2 litre, medium-duty engines which are currently being built by GM's Chevrolet-Pontiac, Canadian car group.
It is expected that DDA's Northampton sales office, with 30 employees, will become part of the new company. Some, but not all of DDA's mainland European offices are also likely to become part of it.
At present DDA has no European manufacturing plant. Its Wellingborough factory, where two-stroke vee engines were assembled, was closed in April 1984.
The DDA/Deere agreement is subject to final negotiations, and clearance by the ITS anti-trust authorities.