Because they cannot design and engineer a car in N. America and thought depending fully on DaeWoo to do all the work would be bad optics. Poor Opel.

This is quite big news… Everyone was expecting the move! and what about that fellow who was the lead engineer of the Volt who ‘moved’ to Opel. Perhaps that was a hint that there was not going to be a sale!

looks like opel didnt make it quite off the impending chopping block… i pity everyone who actually believed GM would feel bound to any of their promises… also, its gonna be interesting how europe will react to this.. frankly, if i was living their, id reconsider if i really want to buy an opel anymore now…
also, will GM repay the loans from Europe that Opel got under the premise that GM is selling off to magna? doubt so… US ****ed Europe over big time…
just a word of advice… you can only yell “wolves” so many times, before people will ignore you…

Smart move. Without Opel platforms, GM will go bankrupt again. Also Opel’s appealing and emotional European design and aesthetics will help GM cars not to look like boring household appliances. The 2010 Buick Lacrosse is an example. Finally GM makes a smart corporate decision.

@fan:

How did the US **** Europe? If it weren’t for the US, Europe would be high stepping today.

CarResearcher, “household appliances” are you sure you arent talking about Toyota?

anywho, i think autocritical is right, that Volt engineer leaving for Opel was clearly because of this, maybe he will be working with opel on the Ampera and possibly head up further R&D for electric vehicles for GM

GM has only used Opel a few times to develop cars for the U.S.! Get it in your heads! Opel does a lot of suspension tuning and interior inspirations. But also, many automakers use European influence in their lineups, especially Ford. See the thing is, GM is doing it so people think it is the worst thing in the world. GM is dong what many others are doing, infusing European influences into its American lineups.

mitzo, GM develops and designs a large majority of its North American lineups here in the U.S. idiot.

Also, the LaCrosse was a global effort, With America, Europe, and China taking parts in developement and design.

-iluvamcars

It’s pretty simple when you think about it. Ford’s bringing over their European designs and so is Chrysler… well even if they’re going to be called Fiats. GM would look awfully stupid coming to the big dance without a date.

Awe
SOME

This will end up being very good news for GM.

Opel was a big part of their R&D and it would have been quite foolish to let that get away.

As long as sales and the economy improve and GM actually has the money to keep them in-house, keeping Opel will probably turn out to be one of the best moves that GM could have done in securing their future. I could see next-gen small and mid-sized sedans coming from them, and that is one of GM’s historic weaknesses.

GM is definitely going to get flack for this move, but in the long-term is could help secure their future.

LaCrosse exterior styling/engineering was done in Michigan, interior styling in China, chassis/platform engineering in Europe, ride/handling tuning in Michigan.

Opel was never going away from GM. It was to be still partly owned by GM and GM would have continued to get engineering from them and profit from Opel sales. Fear was that the designs would have been shared with Russia and future competitors to Opel/Chevy in Europe. GM never wanted to sell off a portion but was forced to by europe governments.

HOWEVER in the end the Europeans figured out the Magna deal would have cut as many plants/people as GM would have if not more. They will go along with this and probably have already blessed it.

Excellent, excellent news. GM couldn’t afford to give up the European market, so this never made sense from the get-go. GM realized that as well, particularly in light of Ford’s impending move to merge much of their European hardware with the NA market.

By the way, GM didn’t screw anybody!!! Opel is THEIR company! They’re entitled to decide whether or not they sell it, even at the 11th hour. Sheesh.

Andy, Toyota got the “household appliance” theme from the Americans….particularly from GM. Look at the Impala for hells sake!

I actually have to be with GM on this one. But in my opinion GM should continue to utilize Buick as the American version of Opel just like Saturn was.

^I like the Impala.

At least it has a character line from the back to the back door. The headlights are more sleek than the Avalon’s too. Plus, the Avalon was redesigned a model year before the Impala.

-iluvamcars

“GM develops and designs a large majority of its North American lineups here in the U.S” True, but those are trucks and SUVs and Impalas and the like. The cars of the future will have to come from Opel for GM to be at all competitive. I stand by my statement that in the US they cannot design and engineer a car. A car that is worth a ****, I mean. They need Opel and DaeWoo!

mitzo – you have no idea what you are talking about. Where do you think the CTS was engineered and developed? Unquestionably GM’s finest road machine, and entirely world-class top to bottom. There’s an extensive list my friend.

Oh and mitzo – “They need DaeWoo”!!!! Haaaa! Haaaa! What a total joke. I can’t believe you even said that – from an engineering standpoint. Goodness.

By maintaining the controlling share, will this not also dramatically impact their total sales? Anyone know what percentage of their total worldwide sales are attributable to the European market (Opel/Vauxhall)?

Someone at GM still has a brain? Wow.

iluvamcars, Ford and Mazda share stuff. Only GM pretends that its cars are not “foreign” or that they are American when they clearly or not. First was the whole “Rethink American” slogan, which was obviously crap when the Opel clones came out, and now the current commercials where they are claiming that imports don’t get better gas mileage when some of the stuff they are comparing are imports now.

**** You Russia and Austria from America with Love

Someone post-Lutz-GM obviously saw the light…

that’s a win-win for Americans and Europeans, anything is better than Russians getting too much influence in Europe , it;s bad enough they controlled half of it for 50 years.

oh , where are the Government Motors bashers now ?

sprodkets, come on, the only import is the Aveo that they may be advertising mileage with. And they do not say “imports”. They just callout the others by name. The only Opel clones were the Saturns and I doubt your are seeing many ads for those.

Again, GM never wanted to sell off part of Opel. At the time they had no choice because Opel was bleeding money and GM could not support them with cash. The Unions thought a Non GM owner would come in on a white horse but they found out that the “white horses” wore black hats and were going to cut even more than GM would have.

Now that Opel is doing better they can keep them.

The Aveo and Cruze are Daewoos. The Buick line is becoming basically Opels. The tech and design inspirations and/or hardware are from outside the US except for trucks. No N. American manufacturer, let alone GM, ever could or can design and engineer a competitive car (especially a smaller one) without relying on offshore companies they bought up with pickup truck profits during the ’90’s. The exception might be Ford, who have finally turned to their European branch to do the car stuff. The Fiesta and Focus and Transit connect and Kuga and other hot upcoming Fords are not from Detroit.

Wasn’t selling off Opel one of the conditions of the bail-out? I imagine Frank Stronach is pretty pissed now.

Don’t be surprised if Magna goes after GM for the costs associated with the purchase agreement. I think we were all given the impression that this was a done deal. If it was as close as we were led to believe, this must’ve cost them a bundle. They even had the unions on board! Germany is demanding their 1.5B Euros back because of this. That’s like getting blood from a stone.

Apparently 25,000 Opel factory workers are striking at 4 manufacturing plants. I don’t think GM is very popular over there right now.

Awesome news! Hopefully this foreshadows other future good new from GM…. Like profits?

Great news!!!

At least we’ll have some great Buicks.

Well, at least GM is consistent. They’re treating all of the parties involved with the alleged Opel sell off the same way they’ve been treating North American customers for decades.

Stay classy, GM. Glad to see your lack of professionalism and meaningless words transcends those buying your crap products to those trying to buy divisions of your mismanaged company.

May you and your partner in bankruptcy, the UAW, reap exactly what you’ve sown.

Too bad the taxpayers will be left holding the flaming bag of brown material when you’re done crapping all over us. FOAD.

I woke up this morning extra happy since I read this news before I went to bead. Awesome!

Liquidation motors?

@ Sprockkets – Yeah amazing. huh? I almost sh*t my pants when I saw GM actually made a smart decision for once in my life.

h82w8 – Opel is THEIR company, and it’s THEIR decision on whether or not to sell! Sheesh. They have to make the right decision long-term, and this is clearly the right decision…regardless of the impression it leaves. Many a deal have been abandoned last minute…every day in fact in corporate America (and world-wide)….why is this ANY different!!!

I should have seen this coming… Would Gm ever leave it’s R&D department?

carstuff, apparently you are too blind to see GM compare the Mailbu to the Accord and Camry.

Or are you too stupid to see that the Opel pictured is the same as the Mailbu sans their logo?

GM can’t sell Opel. Who else will they leech off design and engineering from to build a decent car and then stick their badge on? Don’t forget it call it all American though or the loyal hillbillies, err buyers won’t take it.

@ sprockkets and carstuff – Actually. The car thats pictured (Opel Insignia) is to be the upcoming Buick Regal. The Malibu is the Opel Vectra/Saturn Aura with different styling. But its the same point you’re getting at sprockkets. A rebadged, redressed Opel. That’s right NMOFGM. If you read this. Another example of GM America needing to reffer to an outside source to make a fuel efficient car that people actually want.

I just wonder why we europeans are even making business with americans, it always ends up with Europe screwed over.

Dat antara liooks gr8

I guess our definition of import is different. I think there are actually 2 different definitions today;

There are the “Imports”, everyone but the 3 domestics.

Then there are imported vehicles, which are built outside of the US.

Per your comment “they are claiming that imports don’t get better gas mileage when some of the stuff they are comparing are imports now.”

As I said the Aveo is about the only vehicle that meets one of the two definitions above that is being advertised. The Malibu you refer to fits neither definition.

And yes the Malibu is based on the Epsilon I architecture engineered at Opel but all the work above the floorpan and the FOD were done here in the US. Malibu just used the basic floorpan/chassis.