Poor Man's MQB: Opel's Next Gen Insignia Will Be An Astragnia
Opel is bleeding money and has to save at all costs. Opel hoped to share development of the next generation Insignia with PSA , but that was called off before it was even announced. According to German media reports, Opel engineers quickly developed a more cost effective solution: A head transplant.
According to the reports, the main ingredient of the new Insignia will be the old Insignia. On its unchanged rear body, say the reports, Opel will graft the front part of the new Astra, and presto, a new Insignia. Asked for a comment, Opel said it wants to be “more modular and more flexible” in the future.
The news prompted the German press to new creativity: Kfz-Betrieb, a German magazine covering the sales and service end of the auto industry, coined a new name (“Astragnia”) for the car, and dispatched designers to the Photoshop front to re-create the beast. It did not take long.
The paper also reports that production of Opel’s Mokka SUVlet could soon migrate from South Korea to Europe, most likely Opel Eisenach. The Mokka is a rare hot seller at Opel, customers have to wait six months to get theirs. What’s more, moving production from Korea to Europe is seen as a concession to appease the German unions.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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When Volkswagen launched the "new" Passat back in 2011, it essentially relaunched the old car (based on a modified version of the Golf platform and launched in 2005), with a redesigned front-end and rear-end. But hey, that was Volkswagen. You see, when Volkswagen does something like this, nobody complains, but when other car makers do something similar, suddenly it's no longer acceptable.
And who is realy thinking that Insignia and Astra have completely different platforms? They already share à lot. just like their predecessors did in the seventies, eighties and nineties! A further sharing is the logical way ahead and already predicted by mr. Forster when hè was still at the helm at Opel.
Malibu is another car based on Insignia. Then there are LaCross and Impala (and XTS) - all are long wheelbase versions of the same platform. So volume wise it is more than enough to justify further development of platform. The question is there need to make Insignia distinctive from other models? I do not see what is the problem - we are talking about front and rear clips. You cannot just take Astra front clip and attach to Insignia - sizes and shapes are different. You can make it same style - Honda does it, Toyota does it (in most cases to cannot tell Camry from Corolla). All companies have modular platforms - GM is simply late. Consider Lexus ES and Avalon - exactly the same car (Avalon is actually better and slightly less expensive to boot) and Camry and etc - use same platform - different sizes.
"Yeah...And then we'll take the front of a Cadillac and graft it on to a Cavillier..."