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

Posted on Dec 21, 2017 in Editorials | 2 comments

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.