Posted on February 27th, 2008 by Auto News
Hoping to turn up some interest in its slow-selling Tigra, Opel is launching a special edition at the 2008 Geneva auto show??”dubbed the Illusion??”that aims to break some new stylistic ground.
In the tradition of the Landau roof, the Tigra Illusion has its metal roof covered with canvas cloth to achieve a softtop look, something we haven??™t seen for a while on a factory-delivered GM vehicle.
But there’s a contemporary twist: Unlike past whales with a vinyl roof, the Tigra actually is a convertible, with a retractable steel hardtop hidden beneath the canvas. GM will therefore be grateful if you don’t confuse this with the shredded vinyl roof on your Fleetwood.
The Tigra is a sporty two-seater based on the previous-generation Corsa. Produced by the troubled French coachbuilder Heuliez, its long-term future seems uncertain. In the short-term, the Illusion offers plenty of extras, including heated leather seats, air conditioning, metallic paint, and 17-inch two-color wheels. Power is produced by two four-cylinder engines, an 89-hp 1.4-liter and 123-hp 1.6.
This small but fun retractable hardtop won??™t come to North America. European customers who like the Illusion package??”but don??™t want their Tigra disguised as a soft-top??”can order the otherwise identical Endless Summer special edition.
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Posted on February 26th, 2008 by Auto News
These days, we are presented with a remarkable batch of cars and crossovers touted as urban vehicles, most of which present a rather grim view of urban life, decked out as they are with four-wheel drive, powerful multicylinder engines, and menacing styling seemingly designed more for urban warfare.
But automotive city life doesn??™t need to be all power and competition. One of the most successful small one-box cars outside North America is GM??™s Meriva, which is sold globally under the Opel, Vauxhall, and Chevrolet monikers and which offers buyers a compact, cheerful, and competent choice.
Built on a dated Corsa platform, the Meriva needs a successor. The concept on display at the 2008 Geneva auto show provides a pretty accurate idea of what the next-generation Meriva multipurpose vehicle, to be launched in 2010, will look like.
The pronounced drop in the sill line and a dramatic low swage line create some visual drama and should make the Meriva one of the most forward-looking choices in its class. The large windows mark a departure from current styling, which aims to encase passengers to create a sense of security.
The Meriva concept showcases some elements that might not make it into production, such as the FlexDoors, a patented system that includes rear-hinged rear doors. We will continue to call them suicide doors, GM??™s claim that they can only be opened ???when there is no risk to the passengers??? notwithstanding.
GM says there are no plans to bring the next Meriva to the U.S., but with the Opel and Saturn vehicle lineups converging, there might eventually be a case for this compact monospace in North America.
For Europe, we are hoping for a successor to the 177-hp European Meriva OPC (Opel Performance Center) for serious urban warfare.
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Posted on January 5th, 2008 by Auto News
Anyone who doesn??™t believe GM is serious about plug-in hybrids has a third reason to reconsider: the Opel Flextreme, which GM rolled out at the 2007 Frankfurt auto show. Built on the same E-Flex hybrid-vehicle architecture as the original gasoline-electric Volt unveiled earlier this year in Detroit and the hydrogen-electric Volt that rolled out in Shanghai, the diesel-electric Flextreme is the most intriguing iteration yet of E-Flex??”from a packaging and powertrain standpoint??”and shows GM is dead serious about getting E-Flex to market.
Unlike most of the hybrids we??™ve seen to date, including previous Volts, the Flextreme combines a small diesel-powered backup engine with an electric motor. With its lithium-ion batteries fully charged (which takes just three hours when plugged into a standard 220-volt outlet), the Flextreme offers a range of up to 34 miles. If the batteries run dry, the 1.3-liter clean-diesel four-cylinder engine is engaged at a constant rpm to provide electricity to recharge the battery without interrupting the journey. Maximum range with the diesel churning is 444 miles. As in previous Volts, the engine never sends power directly to the wheels, instead only serving to charge the batteries.
Unlike the compact Volt, the Flextreme has a sleek, one-box design. At more than 15 feet long and about the size and shape of a spacey Mazda 5 mini-minivan, the Flextreme accurately predicts the design direction of Opel and, in turn, Saturn, which??”according to one GM design executive on hand at the press conference??”has been working closer and closer with Opel under the direction of GM Design veep Ed Welburn.
The Flextreme itself further develops the design language previewed on the Opel GTC concept seen last March at the Geneva show. Sure to make it onto future Opels are the boomerang-shaped headlamps, which integrate lighting and small intake units. Pronounced body-side sculpting and C-shaped taillamps are also in line for upcoming production models. Close inspection reveals that many features, such as the grille and even the wheels, are covered in a clear plastic in the interest of aerodynamics, which is impressively low with a coefficient of drag of just 0.25.
As for that center spine that runs up the back and almost all the way to the windshield, don??™t bet on that making it to production. But it does facilitate one of the Flextreme??™s numerous concept-car curiosities: gullwing cargo doors that, although not exactly optimal for loading a four-by-eight sheet of plywood in the back, nonetheless present incredible ease of curbside cargo loading and look super-cool when opened.
It’s a different story for the rear suicide doors, which operate independently from the fronts and open to 90 degrees. So well received were they in consumer clinics that they are being pushed ahead for whatever production model comes of this. But unlike the concept??™s elegant pillarless execution, the future variant will have a B-pillar for safety reasons.
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Posted on December 24th, 2007 by Auto News
The company known for Corvettes, Camaros, and Cadillacs will offer up a decidedly different spread in Germany with fuel-cell vehicles, hybrids, and electric cars as evidence it is serious about this environmental stuff.
GM says the strategy is simple: Reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the short term, and introduce alternative powertrains for the long term.
The big splash for Opel is a Corsa hybrid concept that combines electric motors and lithium-ion batteries with a turbo-diesel??”pretty expensive stuff for a B-car.
Opel teases us by saying the mating of the powertrains will be done in a way ???that is fundamentally different from previous hybrid propulsion designs.???
Opel??™s foray into the hybrid world follows the stir created earlier this year with the debut of the Chevy Volt in Detroit, giving us our first look at an electric-vehicle architecture known as E-Flex that is keeping about 600 GM engineers busy.
The Volt debuted in January as a plug-in hybrid with a 1.0-liter three-cylinder turbo gasoline engine that can run on an E85 ethanol blend. The next phase was shown in April at the Shanghai auto show, in a Volt with a hydrogen fuel cell for propulsion.
The Opel Corsa hybrid concept is a European approach to hybrids, exhibited in a monocab concept akin to an Opel/Saturn Astra. The Corsa combines a 1.3-liter turbo-diesel engine, an electric motor, and lithium-ion batteries. It could be in production in the next three or four years.
Meanwhile, GM says it will invest ?‚¬700 million ($955 million) in Europe alone on new engines and trannies over the next five years. That includes the introduction of low-emissions ecoFLEX versions of Opel and Vauxhall high-volume model such as the Corsa 1.3 DTI. The Corsa ecoFLEX is slated to go on sale next year.
And Frankfurt attendees can check out the European version of the HydroGen4 fuel-cell vehicle. This fall, GM will start putting the first of its global fleet of 100 FCVs, based on the Chevy Equinox, on the road in the U.S. for real-world testing.
Inside the mid-size SUVs is GM??™s fourth-generation fuel-cell stack, a single 97-hp motor with 236 pound-feet of torque driving the front wheels, a pack of nickel-metal-hydride batteries, and three hydrogen storage tanks.
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Posted on December 24th, 2007 by Auto News
Opel opts for pizazz over practicality with a new five-door Agila that becomes more city car than microvan. The five-seater is not as deep into functional territory as the current model that was based on the Suzuki Wagon R+ and racked up more than 440,000 sales across Europe.
The second-generation Agila, making its world debut in Frankfurt and slated to go on sale in Europe in April 2008, was designed to be more dynamic, the European arm of General Motors says. The tiny car??”which will wear both Opel and Vauxhall badges??”sports softer curves and a more interesting side profile with a lowered roofline.
Riding on a shortened Suzuki Swift platform, it is the mechanical twin to the Suzuki Splash that also is bowing at the Frankfurt auto show. The Agila is now 7.8 inches longer (to a full 12.1 feet long), 2.4 inches wider, and 2.8 inches lower than the current model.
Power comes from two new gasoline engines from Suzuki that also are making their world premi??res. The base engine is a 65-hp, 1.0-liter three-cylinder that is mated to a five-speed manual transmission??”no drag racing with the family here. Top of the line is an 86-hp, 1.2-liter four-cylinder gasoline engine with a first for the lineup: an optional automatic tranny. The most fuel-efficient option is the 75-hp, 1.3-liter common-rail turbo-diesel offering 140 pound-feet of torque.
We don??™t expect GM to sell the Agila, or the Splash, in North America. The General teased us in New York with the Chevrolet Beat, Groove, and Trax minicar triplets, but there was little promise that they would make it to the streets here, either.
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Posted on November 22nd, 2007 by Auto News
Saturn showrooms have been looking much better these days, thanks to GM??™s European Opel brand, whose cars have been showing up on our shores badged as Saturns. The Saturn Sky is an Opel GT, the Saturn Astra is an Opel Astra, and the Saturn Aura is blessed with some underpinnings and styling inspiration from the Opel Vectra. But as innovative and edgy as Opel styling is for Saturn, in Europe, this look is old hat.
Enter the GTC, a concept that previews the look of the next round of Opels, the Vectra in particular. Judging from the low-slung two-plus-two, we feel future Opels will have a stronger, more upright nose, with a smiling pentagonal grille like those found on new Mazdas. A pair of fang-like vertical intakes flanking the grille feed air to the concept??™s 295-hp turbocharged V-6, but they would look overly aggressive on a roadgoing sedan, like a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on a nun. Ditto the muscular fender bulges and pinched greenhouse. Likely, the intakes are there to emphasize the new nose styling, which sets the grille forward of the headlights on a prominent beak that emerges from the hood??™s raised center section, similar to the 2008 Chevrolet Malibu.
The coupe concept??™s sweeping fastback roofline suggests the next Vectra will get a more aggressive greenhouse and a bobbed trunk. The thick C-pillar and notched rear window mean that plenty of trunk space will remain behind the back seats. Angular, oversized taillamps are a virtual carry-over from the current Vectra and Saturn Aura, and the trunklid retains Opel??™s signature vertical crease. Massive stylized exhaust tips integrated into the bumper will give way to more demure tailpipes on production cars. Matte-metallic paint??”a theme at the Geneva show this year??”likely won??™t reach showrooms anytime soon, as it can??™t be washed without looking cloudy.
Stretch this concept a few inches, shorten the door to make room for another door aft, squint, and you??™ll be looking at the next-generation Opel Vectra, which we expect will debut within a year. Given that the Saturn Aura is new for 2007, styling cues from this concept likely won??™t appear in Saturn showrooms until 2010.
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