Among other things, the Holland plant is the producer of the domestic auto industry's first extrusion-based aluminum subframes, which have been used in the Chevrolet Corvette sports cars since 1993.

Although no announcement of the executive change has been made by Hydro Aluminium or its parent company, Norsk Hydro A/S in Norway, company sources said Oestbye left Raufoss Automotive Co., Raufoss, Norway, to take the top job at the Michigan concern.

Raufoss Automotive, where Oestbye served as general manager of structural products, is an automotive components manufacturer that is 40-percent owned by Norsk Hydro.

Hydro Aluminium Automotive Structures (HAAS) also has major operations in Europe, including a plant in Tonder, Denmark, that makes extrusion-based spaceframes for some of the automakers, including Renault SA in France and Lotus Cars Ltd., Norwich, England.

The Holland, Mich., operations of HAAS began making the Corvette subframes a little more than three years ago, and those subassemblies were the first units employing extrusions to be installed in a line of North American-built cars.