Opel Increases Market Share in Europe, GM Still not Happy

Opel has increased its share in Europe this year, with sales rising 6% up to May, giving the brand a market share of 7.4%, compared to 7% in 2010. So mother company GM must be satisfied, right?

Well, not entirely, according to Automotive News. And that’s because Opel’s cars are technologically advanced and due to high German working rates, are quite expensive to manufacture. However, they cannot be sold in prices similar to direct competitors such as Volkswagen because they lack their rivals’ image.

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2013 Opel Astra Convertible Spy Photos and Video Outline New Softop Model

Our spies have photographed and filmed the new Opel (Vauxhall in Britain) Astra Convertible on test in Germany. The vehicles caught testing here are early prototype models as the front doors appear to be carried over complete with their frames from the hatchback model.

Nevertheless, we are offered out first look at the open-top version of the new Astra series, which is planned to go on sale by early 2013. The most important change over the previous Astra TwinTop is the replacement of the more complicated, heavier and costly retractable metal roof with a traditional fabric hood.

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Angry Son Drives Opel Calibra into His Parents’ Living Room!

It is really hard to believe, but a 27-year old man from The Netherlands plowed his parents house with his car after an argument. According to press reports from the local media, the man left his house and returned later in the day but not the way his parents were expecting as he picked up speed in his 1990s Opel Calibra sports coupe and drove or rather flew into the living room of his house!

Amazingly, no one was seriously injured in the rage-induced incident. The police arrested the young man who is now facing several charges. Check out the aftermath of the crash in the video after the break.

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Report: GM Fed up with Opel, but a Sale isn’t on the Table

They say, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and true enough in the case of GM’s relationship with its European subsidiary Opel, there seems to be a lot of smoke piling up lately. Just yesterday, press reports from Auto Bild and Spiegel Online said that GM is looking for a buyer, but the news was quickly dismissed by spokespeople from both Opel and the government of Germany's state of Thuringia, home to one of the brand’s factories.

Today, Reuters came out with a new report saying the Detroit automaker is “frustrated” with its money-losing Opel brand and is “considering options for a turnaround”, noting, however, that a sale of the Opel brand is highly unlikely.

"Akerson is fed up with Opel, and the turnaround isn't gaining traction," a unnamed source who is close to the GM CEO told Reuters. "He is trying to think of all possibilities to improve performance. But a sale is wishful thinking,” the source added.

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GM Denies Reports Claiming Plans to Sell its Opel Brand Possibly to the Chinese or VW Group

German car magazine Auto Bild and weekly Der Spiegel reported Thursday that General Motors is once again considering the sale of its Opel and Vauxhall units. The reports were dismissed as pure speculation by the Detroit automaker as well as a German state with an Opel factory, which called the news “nonsense”.

According to the news reports, GM allegedly was no longer in need of Opel’s know-how in manufacturing small cars as well as low emission and fuel efficient powerplants and that it could replace the German brand with its South Korean GM Chevrolet unit, formerly known as Daewoo.

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Opel Officially Reveals 2012 Astra GTC, High-Po OPC Coming Next Year

This is General Motors’ brand new Opel Astra GTC revealed more than two months ahead of its world premiere at the 64th International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany, in mid-September. The newest member of Opel’s ever-growing Astra family will go on sale across Europe including the United Kingdom where it will be available as a Vauxhall later this year. Recent reports also suggest it may come to the States under the Buick brand.

GM’s European subsidiary is confident about its new Astra GTC with Vauxhall going as far as to claim that it will “lay down the gauntlet to VW’s Scirocco and Renault’s Megane Coupe with a heady mix of dynamic excellence, dramatic design features and competitive pricing".

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Vauxhall Insignia gains New 1.4-Liter Turbo Petrol and Improved EcoFlex Diesels

It’s model-year changeover over time for the Vauxhall Insignia with the British company announcing the addition of a low emissions ecoFLEX diesel model and a new-to-the-range 1.4 Turbo petrol engine. Read more »

Rumors: Opel Astra GTC May Come to the U.S. as a Buick

It seems the success of the Buick Regal, which is essentially a rebadged Opel Insignia, has determined GM management to consider bringing another Opel to the U.S., the Astra GTC hatch. Buick will soon have a compact sedan in its range, the Astra-based Verano due to be launched this fall, but it also wants a sporty hatchback with enough power and fine handling to lure young buyers. Read more »

British Study Reveals the Most Popular Hairdresser’s Car in Real Life

And no, despite what you may have heard or read, the Audi TT ain’t the most popular car among hairdressers – or at least not in Britain. According to a new study made available today by UK women's car insurance specialist Diamond, that title goes to…*drums please*…the one and only, MINI One hatchback. In fact, the BMW Group’s MINI brand had two vehicles in the top five positions.

The UK insurance firm came to this conclusion after looking at data from over 18,000 hairdressers in Britain. The company said the MINI One is three and a half times more likely to be driven by someone working as a hairdresser than everyone else.

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GM’s Opel follows in the Footsteps of Ford, Asks Bloggers to Write About the Astra GTC to Attend the Presentation

Those of you readers that have been with us for a while might remember our revealing post about Ford Motor Company’s shady marketing tactics (via its media agency) to attract attention and web traffic to the brand by asking bloggers to participate in a Ford website-linking contest and win a place in the company’s 2010 Model Year Drive event.

That said, we are no strangers to the mommy-blogger-type approach from marketing companies representing major automotive brands, but we never cease to be amazed. This time we were approached by a social media agency called Knallgrau on behalf of GM’s European Opel unit. When we received the first email, we believed it was a media / press invitation but upon our request for additional information, we discovered that wasn’t the case.

In a similar fashion to the Ford incident, the agency asked if we wanted to write about the new Astra GTC and participate in a type of contest, the winners of which will be invited to the official unveiling of the three-door hatchback at Opel’s headquarters in Rüsselsheim, Germany.

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SCOOP: Is this the New 2013 Opel / Vauxhall Astra Convertible?

With the new sporty looking three-door Astra GTC on its way and the Astra Sedan outlined by its sister models from Buick’s US (2012 Verano) and China (Excelle) divisions, the only body style left to complete the range of Opel’s C-segment model series is the convertible version.

Recently, our spies in Germany caught a glimpse of an Astra-based model, which appears to be the cabriolet variant of the series. While we can’t be 100 percent sure, it is clear that this Astra has a boot while the close ups reveal a more raked rear windshield line than you’d normally expect to see on a four-door family sedan.

To get an idea of what the Astra Convertible might look like, here's our artist’s impression based on the upcoming GTC model. Even though our image of Opel’s VW Golf Cabriolet contender was styled with a soft-top, it has not yet been revealed if the German company will adopt this solution or if it will continue to use the current Astra TwinTop’s retractable metal roof.

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New Opel Antara 2011

New Opel Antara 2011, Opel Antara 2012, Opel Antara 2010, Opel Antara 2009, Opel Antara 2008, Opel Antara 2007

Geneva Show: Opel Ampera EV - European Sales start in 2011

The recently revealed Chevrolet Volt extended range electric hybrid will find its way into Europe as the Opel Ampera while it will also be offered with right-hand drive in the United Kingdom by Opel's sister-brand, Vauxhall. Scheduled to go on sale in Europe in the second half of 2011, the Ampera features a unique front and rear design that incorporates several styling cues from Opel's Flextreme and GTC Concept show cars. Other than that, the Ampera is virtually identical to the Volt.

The five-door Ampera can seat four passengers offering a luggage capacity of 301 litres. The car's interior features a Jet Black cabin combined with 'Spice Red' accents and Dark Argent Metallic paint on the instrument panel's centre stack.

The Ampera is equipped with an electric motor that powers the car and a conventional petrol engine that kicks in to produce electricity once the batteries are depleted. GM says that for journeys up to 60 km (approx. 40 miles), it runs on electricity stored in the 16-kWh, lithium-ion battery, and emits zero CO2. When the battery's energy is used up, electricity from the petrol engine-generator extends the Ampera's range to more than 500 km.

The electric drive unit delivers 370 Nm of instant torque, the equivalent of 150 horsepower offering the Ampera a zero to 100 km/h (62mph) acceleration time of around nine seconds, and a top speed of 161 km/h (100mph).

Opel Ampera: European Chevy Volt Scooped Undisguised!

Carscoop's spy photographers have done it again, this time by capturing the Opel Ampera study totally undisguised at one of the firm's German centers. Due to be revealed for the first time in public at next month's Geneva Motor Show, the Ampera is nothing more, nothing less, than a Chevy Volt with a new fascia and a subtly redesigned rear-end. Opel's version of GM's extended-range electric vehicle is scheduled to go on sale in Europe during the second half of 2011, or about a year after the Volt hits Chevy's North American outlets.

The most visible styling changes on the Ampera concern the EV's front-end design which is inspired from Opel's latest concept cars like the GTC. It features a set of Civic-like headlamps with vertical air ducts, a thinner grille and a new bumper.

At the rear-end, aside from the new bumper, Opel's design team restyled the tail lamps and added a horizontal chrome bar while they also painted the lower part of the fifth door in the same color as the rest of the car -as opposed to the Volt's blacked out panel.

We don't have any pictures of the Ampera's interior, but judging from exterior, we're guessing that changes will most likely be minimal.

According to General Motors, for trips up to 60 km or around 40 miles, the Ampera will run solely on lithium-ion battery power charged through a standard 230v outlet while for longer distances, the car will continue to drive on electricity that is generated by a small internal combustion engine.