The opening day of the Geneva Auto Show is over a month away, but General Motors’ Germany-based Opel division has already ruled out turning the sleek GT concept (pictured) that will debut there into a production model.
“[The GT is] purely a concept study to show off innovations that may one day be found in an Opel production car,” explained a company spokesman in an interview with industry trade journal Automotive News.
German magazine Auto Bild was the first to report that Opel would leverage the benefits of economies of scale by building the production GT on the same front-wheel drive platform as the Astra, a popular Golf-fighting hatchback. The spokesman pointed out that a production version would compete in a niche segment that’s regularly shrinking in size, so the odds are against it even if it can be brought to the market in a relatively cost-efficient manner. A two-door version of the Astra has been categorically ruled out for the same reasons, and many of Opel’s competitors — including Renault and Peugeot — have recently come to the same conclusion.
Furthermore, the magazine claimed the GT would be introduced in 2018 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original model. Opel’s spokesman told Automotive News that even if the GT was given the green light for production there’s no way it could be ready to hit showrooms in a year or two.
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