Supposing MG Sportscar via on Opel GM SAIC Partnership

February 28, 2016 Staff Highlights 2

An interesting proposal by the folks over at “GM Authority”. Note, while this is only supposition, it is quite an interesting idea.  Anyway, the General Motors-SAIC partnership has been a healthy one for both companies, and has helped GM flourish in the Chinese marketplace. Both companies have already expanded into early engineering for products outside of the Chinese market, namely powertrains.

Could An MG Partnership Bring The Opel GT Concept To Life

That’s the backstory for what Automotive News Europe proposes to bring the stunning Opel GT concept to life. SAIC also owns the storied, and decidedly British, MG brand. MG has struggled to regain traction in the UK, its only market at this time.

As it stands, Opel has stated it has very little intent to produce the GT, stating the concept was merely a design study. In order for Opel to bring a proper, rear-wheel drive sports car to life, it would need to utilize some sort of economies of scale, and MG-SAIC could bring just that. Platform sharing would give the GT proper bones (because a FWD GT won’t fly) and a suitable powertrain could be the icing on the cake for this project of dreams.

Vauxhall availability could open up right-hand drive markets (Hello, Oz), and the roadster could easily help consumers swallow the “That’s A Buick?” campaign. Everyone wins.

Read more: http://gmauthority.com/blog/2016/02/could-an-mg-partnership-bring-the-opel-gt-concept-to-life/#ixzz41WBTR0Vr

Staff

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2 Comments

  1. Maybe 3rd time is the charm. With all the hand-offs of the marque and plans for new MG sports cars over the years, I’m hoping this one works.

    BMW had the most ambitious plans of reviving several different British marques to expand their “Z” sports car platform. In the end, of all the storied marques they own, only a new Mini saw the light of day. The outgoing Z3 or new (at the time) Z4 could have made a terrific MG roadster platform.

    Ford missed the boat, leaving MG/Rover on the table when they bought Land Rover/Jaguar/Aston-Martin from BMW, as they could have utilized a modified Mazda MX-5 for a great MGB-style roadster and coupe. They then owned a large stake in Mazda and already sold MG engines and other components, so good reason for that speculation or just hope that faded quickly.

    GM and SAIC have now had a long successful history. The last year I lived in China, Buick surpassed Volkswagen as the top selling marque there, outselling their US brand products in China by 4:1.

    GM still has their Kappa platform in mothballs, so an updated version of that Opel GT with a coupe version and MG roadster and GT coupe platform mates could make sense.

    And, yes, scale is important to make this work. They would have to plan to bring it back to the US if a European market version is to be supported. 60% of the MGB’s over 500,000 umit production run were sold in North America. And nearly half of those are still around. It was the top selling sports car ever through 2000, though production had ended in 1980.

    Here’s hoping. Safety Fast! Art

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