Every Rear-wheel-drive Coupe Concept From GM is Vaporware

Mark Stevenson
by Mark Stevenson

Guess what, enthusiasts? The automakers are lying to you. See that red tire? It may as well be a giant red X written across your hopes and dreams of a small, nimble, rear-wheel drive coupe.

The Opel GT Concept is just that — a concept. And it isn’t the first time GM has pulled this trick this year. Actually, if you look back over the past few years of General Motors rear-wheel drive, two-door concepts, only the Camaro and Cadillacs have come to fruition.

First up, the Opel GT, which has a heritage reaching back to 1968. Initially a coupe, the GT then spawned a Roadster model in 2007. In North America, that model was called the Saturn Sky.

Now we have this, the Opel GT Concept, which Opel themselves has said will debut in Geneva before failing to arrive at any dealership in Europe. It’s straight up fantasy.

Earlier this year, at the North American International Auto Show, Buick tempted us with the Alpha-based Avista concept. It’s also destined to be a flight of fancy concocted by designers that will never see the light of day outside a concours event.

Opel even showed off a new Monza concept in Frankfurt in 2013, in which they said “This is Opel tomorrow.” Tomorrow never came, and the Monza was summarily shipped to a storage facility before product planners completely forgot about its existence.

And remember the mini-Camaro Chevrolet Code 130R concept that didn’t happen?

Since this is just limited to rear-wheel-drive coupes, we can’t mention the Buick Riviera concepts, Chevrolet Tru 140S, and a host of other vehicles that GM has failed to copy on an assembly line.

Automakers, and specifically GM: stop it with the rear-wheel-drive coupe concepts until you’re ready to put your production capacity where your design studio is.

Mark Stevenson
Mark Stevenson

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  • Phargophil Phargophil on Jan 28, 2016

    I know it wasn't a coupe, but I wish something would have come from the 2002 Chevy Malibu concept.

  • Greg Locock Greg Locock on Jan 29, 2016

    It's pretty straightforward, showcars are to car companies as articles like this are to journalism. Clickbait. You journalists could kill them stone dead in a year by ignoring them. You won't of course.

  • Redapple2 Love the wheels
  • Redapple2 Good luck to them. They used to make great cars. 510. 240Z, Sentra SE-R. Maxima. Frontier.
  • Joe65688619 Under Ghosn they went through the same short-term bottom-line thinking that GM did in the 80s/90s, and they have not recovered say, to their heyday in the 50s and 60s in terms of market share and innovation. Poor design decisions (a CVT in their front-wheel drive "4-Door Sports Car", model overlap in a poorly performing segment (they never needed the Altima AND the Maxima...what they needed was one vehicle with different drivetrain, including hybrid, to compete with the Accord/Camry, and decontenting their vehicles: My 2012 QX56 (I know, not a Nissan, but the same holds for the Armada) had power rear windows in the cargo area that could vent, a glass hatch on the back door that could be opened separate from the whole liftgate (in such a tall vehicle, kinda essential if you have it in a garage and want to load the trunk without having to open the garage door to make room for the lift gate), a nice driver's side folding armrest, and a few other quality-of-life details absent from my 2018 QX80. In a competitive market this attention to detai is can be the differentiator that sell cars. Now they are caught in the middle of the market, competing more with Hyundai and Kia and selling discounted vehicles near the same price points, but losing money on them. They invested also invested a lot in niche platforms. The Leaf was one of the first full EVs, but never really evolved. They misjudged the market - luxury EVs are selling, small budget models not so much. Variable compression engines offering little in terms of real-world power or tech, let a lot of complexity that is leading to higher failure rates. Aside from the Z and GT-R (low volume models), not much forced induction (whether your a fan or not, look at what Honda did with the CR-V and Acura RDX - same chassis, slap a turbo on it, make it nicer inside, and now you can sell it as a semi-premium brand with higher markup). That said, I do believe they retain the technical and engineering capability to do far better. About time management realized they need to make smarter investments and understand their markets better.
  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Off-road fluff on vehicles that should not be off road needs to die.
  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Saw this posted on social media; “Just bought a 2023 Tundra with the 14" screen. Let my son borrow it for the afternoon, he connected his phone to listen to his iTunes.The next day my insurance company raised my rates and added my son to my policy. The email said that a private company showed that my son drove the vehicle. He already had his own vehicle that he was insuring.My insurance company demanded he give all his insurance info and some private info for proof. He declined for privacy reasons and my insurance cancelled my policy.These new vehicles with their tech are on condition that we give up our privacy to enter their world. It's not worth it people.”
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