Lightweight sports cars with low-capacity engines, like the Alfa Romeo 4C and the Alpine A120, might be great additions to the motoring world, but GM is not that interested.
Right after revealing its lightweight GT Concept, Opel told Automotive News Europe that it is “purely a concept study to show off innovations that may one day be found in an Opel production car.”
Introduced with a sporty design and pumping some emotion into the Opel range, the concept has ditched any unnecessary luxuries to keep weight below 1,000 kg. Some of the weight saving measures include a touch-pad for the electric doors rather than typical door handles and cameras instead of conventional wing mirrors. Power comes courtesy of a 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine rated at 143 hp and 151 lb-ft of torque. Not a bad power-to-weight ratio for a compact sports car, this one.
On the other hand, perhaps they are just pulling our chain and trying to judge public reaction. That’s because Opel’s spokesman didn’t totally rule out the possibility of the car being produced at some stage: “Even if we were to decide in favor of building the car, it is certainly nothing that could already be on the market next year or the year after that.”
Well, we can wait a couple of years if that’s what it takes, as long as you get the recipe right. And we don’t mind if you ditch those electric doors; we could live with a few more kilos, too.
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