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.

  • 3-On-The-Tree I had a 69 Thunderbird with a 429 and it did the same thing.
  • Lou_BC No. An EV would have to replace my primary vehicle. That means it has to be able to do everything my current vehicle does.
  • Bkojote @Lou_BC I don't know how broad of a difference in capability there is between 2 door and 4 door broncos or even Wranglers as I can't speak to that from experience. Generally the consensus is while a Tacoma/4Runner is ~10% less capable on 'difficult' trails they're significantly more pleasant to drive on the way to the trails and actually pleasant the other 90% of the time. I'm guessing the Trailhunter narrows that gap even more and is probably almost as capable as a 4 Door Bronco Sasquatch but significantly more pleasant/fuel efficient on the road. To wit, just about everyone in our group with a 4Runner bought a second set of wheels/tires for when it sees road duty. Everyone in our group with a Bronco bought a second vehicle...
  • Aja8888 No.
  • 2manyvettes Since all of my cars have V8 gas engines (with one exception, a V6) guess what my opinion is about a cheap EV. And there is even a Tesla supercharger all of a mile from my house.
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