Opel has officially pulled the sheet off of its new Insignia, which is liable to come to the U.S. after its European launch as the newest version of the Saturn Aura. While we thought that we had seen all there was to offer on the sleek four-door sedan, our friends at CarPix have delivered up a few images of a brand new variant to the range, a five-door hatchback.
The totally undisguised hatch, possibly to be known as the CombiCoupe or Fliessheck, mimics the lines of the sedan everywhere but the rear section. The liftgate of the new Insignia looks to be of good size, and promises to add a measure of utility to the car that won’t be possible with a mere truck. Why doesn’t everyone offer a five-door?
No word of course about whether this configuration could make it to American Saturn dealers, though the GM brand’s recent willingness to stock its showrooms with straight Euro copies is encouraging. Tell us what you think of the car, after browsing our gallery below, in comments.
Two General Motors brands were at opposite ends of consumers shopping lists during 2007, with new sales statistics showing big changes in segment popularity.
GM’s Saturn brand was tied for the greatest jump up in new vehicle registrations per franchise last year, up by 55 over 2006 to a total of 479 registrations. BMW showed the same improvement for the year.
Meanwhile Hummer had a less auspicious sales year, with the average franchise registering just 285 new vehicles in 2007. That number was a drop of 90 from 2006, just beating out American Honda, which recorded a drop of 89 registrations per franchise, for the worst year-over-year performance.
Saturn’s success can be partly attributed to an influx of new vehicles, the brand’s greater fuel economy across the range, and rising fuel costs. Conversely Hummer’s slack sales can be attributed to a general decline in the large SUV segment in the U.S.
(Have a look at the popular Saturn Sky in our gallery below.)
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After a variety of leaks, official and unofficial, General Motors’ European Opel brand has gone ahead and released the full specification for its new Insignia ahead of the car’s official debut at the London Motor Show this summer.
Though it’s still unclear exactly which engine lineup will be available if the Insignia makes the leap to the U.S. as a Saturn product, Opel has given us the range for the car’s European spec. The Insignia will offer a choice of three diesels and four gasoline engines, topped off by a 260 horsepower V-6. The diesels will all displace 2.0-liters and will offer between 110 and 160 horsepower. Available transmissions will include manual and automatic six-speeds all around.
Check our gallery below for the first official Insignia photos and then tell us what you think of the potential Saturn product, in comments.
While we’ve been seeing the new Opel Insignia (and probably future Saturn Aura) in various forms of spy photograph for a while now, nothing has been quite so blatant as this latest batch of images released by AutoWeek.nl.
The website has given us fully undisguised images of the car as well as some basic technical specification. The Vectra will be made available with a range of diesel and gasoline engines, from 1.6 to 2.8-liters in displacement. At the top of the line will be a 2.8-liter V-6 making 250 horsepower, though there’s talk of adding a 2.9-liter V-6 diesel at some point as well.
While we still don’t know what would be making the trip across the Atlantic to land in Saturn dealerships, we can expect that it we’ll be seeing the car about a year later than Europe.
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Opel seems to be following the new automaker trend of taking an ownership roll in its own “spy shots,” by releasing the images to the media themselves. The German company has just released a series of images that chronicle the process behind outfitting a car with camouflage for testing in the public eye.
This time the car in question is the Opel Insignia, which is destined to replace the Vectra in Europe, and is quite likely to come to the U.S. under the auspices of the Saturn brand. We have already caught a few real spy shots of the car, but still can enjoy the tongue-in-cheek goodness of the Opel send-up. Enjoy our gallery below.
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The Saturn Sky Red Line benefits from a 260-horsepower turbocharged engine, but we wish that the base Sky could enjoy that powerplant, too. We all agree that the Sky is a handsome little roadster, but we wish that the cabin was a bit more livable.
To read our full impressions, click through the jump.
It seems as if Saturn is continuing its pattern of bringing the latest in Opel hotness over to the U.S., as the clandestine photogs of Brenda Priddy & Company have captured another future Saturn testing in the American Southwest.
Seen here is the production version of the Opel GTC concept that was shown at Geneva in 2007, with a couple of doors and a layer of camouflage added. This car will most likely be the European follow up to the Opel Vectra, set to be called Insignia, and will likely come to the U.S. as the next iteration of Saturn’s Aura.
Saturn’s corporate face seems to have been grafted onto the cool GTC body and is riding on GM’s new Epsilon 2 platform. While Opel’s version of the car will probably go on sale late in the year as a 2009 model, chances are Saturn dealers will have to wait just a bit longer for the car. Check out the rest of the images in our gallery below, and click through the jump to read the shooter’s take on the test car.
No, it’s not the Saturn Flextreme, it’s the Opel Meriva. This Euro-only car won’t be utilizing the E-flex powertrain of the Flextreme Concept, but, instead a 1.4-liter turbocharged I-4 motor.
The Meriva has even got some cool suicide-door action (Flexdoors). There’s no timeline on Opel’s compact, but we doubt it’ll come stateside as a Saturn anytime soon. Check out our gallery of the Meriva at the Geneva Motor Show below.
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General Motors doesn’t want to miss the hype train. It too has now announced that it will have an entire fleet of hybrids. Ok, it didn’t. But, GM will have 16 hybrid models on the market by 2012, CEO Rick Wagoner told reporters at the Geneva Motor Show.
Wagoner said that GM plans to introduce one hybrid model, on average, every four months until 2012. GM currently offers four hybrid models – the Chevy Tahoe, Chevy Malibu, Saturn Vue, and Saturn Aura.
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Recently, we were forced to choose between two Astras: a five-door automatic or a three-door with lowered sport suspension, five-speed manual, and eighteen-inch summer tires. Of course we gravitated toward the latter.
Though the news is as yet unconfirmed by General Motors, reports coming out of the Washington D.C. auto show from friends over at AutoblogGreen have The General hybridizing a whole new batch of SUVs in the relatively near future.
Show floor specialists from GMC seem to be under the impression that the Acadia and Sierra are due to receive hybrid powerplants, while similar members of Saturn’s staff believe there will be an Outlook hybrid. The specialists were on hand to answer questions at the recent D.C. show, but unfortunately said they were unable to have their comments recorded.
Whether the GMC and Saturn show folks were speaking the truth, or just under some sort of misconception, is unclear. What is clear however, is that three new hybrid SUVs flying under GM’s flag would mesh well with the company’s stated goal of releasing a new hybrid every three months, for the next four years.
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The emphasis on green was abound at Saturn’s press conference the other day; the brand showed the Flextreme concept to journalists at the Detroit show, but on a more eminent production front, pulled the wraps off its 2009 Vue Green Line 2 Mode hybrid SUV.
In addition to the 3.6-liter V-6 powered hybrid ‘ute, GM also trotted a prototype for the Vue Plug-In Hybrid across the stage. Essentially the same thing as the 2 Mode Vue, the Plug-In supposedly moves to lithium-ion batteries, allowing the vehicle to reportedly travel more than 10 miles on electricity alone. Because this was only a prototype, the Plug-In vehicle moved off-stage, allowing the Flexstreme to arrive, and hasn’t been seen since.
Although the normal 2 Mode Green Line goes on sale later this year as an ‘09 model, production of the Plug-In version is tentatively targeted for 2010. For those of you interested in a hybrid Vue, is the extra two year wait worth 10 miles of EV drive time? Let us know in the comments section.
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