OPEL INSIGNIA SPORT RACING CAR 2014

2014 Opel Corsa Facelift

2014 Opel Corsa Facelift - “Facelift” for your 2014 Opel Corsa, that will debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show, coming from 10 to be able to 23 Sept 2013. 12 months, trapped the actual “spy” images. Even though latest era from the Opel Corsa in the market due to the fact 2006. 12 months, Opel is still taking care of relaxing this design, as opposed to setting up a new era. The modern renovation will spawn such as entry fascia, 2014 Opel Adam, although all of those other design and style appear like the present era.

2014 Opel Corsa Facelift

The lining will be prepared intended for refreshment, for the reason that controls along with the airwaves method is going to be a lot increased. Your cheap high quality is going to be increased when compared to latest design, which has been last restored late 2010. 12 months. Additionally it is predicted of which motors is going to be changed to reduce fuel ingestion in addition to LASER emissions.

2014 Opel Corsa Facelift

About the expense of coming from 2014 Opel Corsa is still speculation, however it is assumed of which it won't always be greater in comparison with previous to.

Uncle Buick

I was going to call this post "Would you Adam & Eve it!?" but since it is about Vauxhall's posh, American uncle and since the largest group of people who read my posts are American and don't speak Cockney, I went with "Uncle Buick."

Autoguide reported this story yesterday about how GM CEO Dan Akerson expressed his desire to add the Vauxhall/Opel Adam and Cascada to the Buick model lineup.

Buick is not a brand I know too much about - my only real memories of a Buick involve the brown Buick Century that Kojak used to drive in the 1970s:

I don't believe that Buicks were ever sold here in the UK but I do know that it is meant to be the upmarket badge for GM in The States.

Which surprises me a bit that they would want to re-badge the Adam as a Buick.  I can sort of understand the Cascada - it was seriously mooted in my earlier story on the Cascada, but the Adam is meant to be a Mini/Fiat 500 worrier.  In fact, why not sell it to the Americans as a small, funky, European car and give it a Vauxhall or Opel badge there too?

This story did prompt me to look up Buick on Wikipedia (yes, I know other, more reliable, websites are available) where I learned that Buick himself was Scottish and the cars gained "Ventiports" in 1949 which are ventilation holes in the front wings representing the engine cylinders that have little flashing lights in them to indicate the sparks - I'd like to see that on a modern car - don't know what they would do for a diesel though.


Now, if they do insist on calling a small Buick the Buick Adam, here's a tip for the marketing people:

Get a clip of Telly Savalas saying,

"Who Loves Ya, Baby?"

Holden Out For A Hero

My favourite Aussie car news site has got very excited this morning about the launch of the new Holden VF Commodore - the latest family sedan from GM's Australian Division.

Due to the geography of Australia, the family sedan is still important down there just like the Cavalier and Sierra used to be over here. This is an entirely Australian designed and built car but the question is, will it look like GM's American Chevrolet Cruze:

or GM's European Vauxhall/Opel Insignia?

Well, here's the conclusive answer:

Glad that small matter is cleared up.

The launch itself was quite interesting. Catch the video here if you want although it was mostly concerned with the impressive technological features of the new car. It was fronted by Holden's MD which may stand for Managing Director (his job) or Mike Devereaux (his name).

It is only at the very end of the launch video that you actually get to see the car but I've just shown it to you anyway.

The Americans are quite interested, AutoGuide had the story here - they are interested in the implications for a new Chevy SS.

Even before the launch, though, the Aussies were looking further ahead to the VF replacement on sale in 2017. I think they were trying to reassure Australia that there was a longer-term future for The Commodore but to quote one of the comments added below the story, "Stealing a bit of the VF's thunder. It no longer seems as important now." Oops.

Still, I wouldn't go Holden a grudge about it.

Drivel 2022

Sounds like a desktop computer doesn't it? Maybe from the mid-1990s.

It's actually a GM plan for the future prosperity of the Vauxhall Opel Group.

It is outlined in a story in Autocar yesterday. The article tells us that "Under the plan, which was approved six weeks ago by GM's main board,
 Vauxhall-Opel will cut fixed costs by $500m by mid-decade, launch 23 new models and 13 new engines between now and 2016 and start building non Opel-Vauxhalls" and it "will also expand and implement the recently announced alliance with PSA." That follows on from my story a few months back in which I voiced my concerns about a possible merger with PSA, the French group behind Citroën and Peugeot.

It appears that this is the latest of many rescue/restructuring plans but there's not too much management-speak - apart from “Vauxhall 
is an example of best practice” and “not to include hope as part of the strategy" which are not too bad really when you think about it. I've checked out the photos of GM Europe
 president Steve Girsky and vice CEO Thomas Sedran and neither of them look like this manager:

or, if you happen to be American...

so there's a bit of hope there to go with the strategy.

The new car sales situation is very mixed at the moment - looking at the BBC Global Car Industry News page today is showing Ford taking on 2200 workers in America because of increased sales with BMW and Rolls Royce reporting record sales. There are also reports of increased car sales in both Japan and the UK.

However, they also report Honda laying of 800 UK staff blaming weak demand across Europe and that Ferrari sales slump in Italy. Perhaps more significantly for this item, Peugeot Citroen hit by 'crisis' in European car sales.

I live quite close to a Vauxhall factory and know people who work there. The GM management-speak here does seem positive and they do seem to have a 10-year plan which is unusually forward thinking these days.



Oh, my eyesight! It says "DRIVE! 2022"

The Americans Are Interested in Vauxhall

Or are they?

Most of the American sites I follow are very interested in the Vauxhall Cascada - they are even showing photos of right-hand-drive cars with British Number Plates.

Although the Google images that stood out for me when I searched were this one of the Cascada's early predecessor, the Vauxhall Cavalier Convertible:

and this one apparently of a Singer Cascada:

I remember Singer cars from my youth but don't remember one that pretty - actually - I'll take that back - the later (1970s) Singer Rapiers were nice. Singer were part of the Rootes group who eventually found themselves under the ownership of PSA Peugeot-Citroen.

But I have digressed somewhat. Or have I?

The reason that America is so interested in this Vauxhall is that it may well get re-badged as a Buick Regal over there. Here is the Fox News story on it.

The Buick Regal, of course, should not be confused with the Reliant Regal:

Vauxhall, or as it is known in the rest of the World, Opel, is GM's loss-making, European arm - hence the interest in the Cascada being the new Regal soft-top. The GM accountants, however, are more interested in the loss-making part of that sentence - and a possible solution has been mooted this week. This Autocar story covers it quite well. It talks of a possible merger between Vauxhall-Opel & Peugeot-Citroen although GM would only own 30% of the new organisation.

I don't like the sound of this - it sounds more like a take-over and given the model-range overlap would probably lead to some factory closures - and probably not in France.

The article states that "According to Automotive News Europe, this tentative plan is said to have been one of a number of ideas being considered by the management teams of PSA and GM, including selling Opel outright to PSA or GM buying PSA’s automotive division"

I guess it will all come down to whether or not the Americans are interested in Vauxhall.

Cosmetic Surgery Gone Wrong

Couple of stories from Autocar this week about facelifts.



The first concerns the Suzuki Splash. This car is being updated from looking like this......to looking like this...Not exactly earth-shattering changes there but if anything, I prefer the older version.

Now, what does this mean for The Splash's sister car - the virtually identical Vauxhall (or Opel) Agila? Maybe they are too busy at the moment facelifting the Insignia Estate (or "Sports Tourer" to give it it's proper name). Autocar's second facelift story this week covers this with some spy-shots of the face-lifted car...My usual gripe with spy-shots is that they are completely pointless - you usually can't tell anything from them anyway.

but this!?

WHAT THE BLEEDIN' 'ELL IS THE POINT OF A SPY-SHOT OF A FACELIFT OF A DISGUISED CAR!?

What do you say, Jackie?

A Little Light Reading

This story today from Autoguide.com is about a rather clever new headlamp system being developed by GM in Europe.It is a matrix system and involves separate LED sections that are controlled individually by computer according to surrounding conditions as determined by a connected camera.

The system has the lights on full-beam for a lot of the time but is alledgedly clever enough to detect other vehicles and not dazzle anyone. I'm all in favour of anything that stops me being dazzled when I look in my rear-view mirror on a motorway at night as German cars other than Opels (ie Audis, BMWs, Mercs and Porsches) all tear along the outside lane with enough light shining forwards to host an evening football match - not that I would advocate playing football on a motorway - unless you're John Terry perhaps.

They have produced a video with some nice music that supposedly shows how it works but it didn't make a lot of sense to me:The bit at the start concerns me a bit where the man plays with the settings to give a light-show. I know that the systems would soon get hacked so that young rappers like Dazzle-Razzle and Bo-Diddly would have their pimped up Chrysler Voyagers annoying everyone in a 3 mile radius. Or should that be 8-mile? - spot the rap reference there proving that I am up with the kids.

The video then goes on to show the lights in action with a few German captions. Apparently "fern" means "distant", "abblen" is to fade out and "matrix" means "matrix".

I still didn't get most of it but it is possibly good news for this chap though: