ChevyMgr

DETROIT/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The board of General Motors Co (GM.UL) has opted to keep Opel, undoing months of painstaking negotiations to sell the European unit to a Russian-backed group led by Canada's Magna (MGa.TO).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091103/bs_nm/us_opel_gm

hhrcrafty

Nobody really wants Magna to have their own brand anyway. They already build almost half the cars in Europe in their private-label assembly plants.

xzombiex66

So is Vauxhall sticking around then? I wish the VXr8 would make its way over here. And stay the same design.

urbexHHR

Yeah I heard this on NPR tonight on my drive home. Good news in my opinion. Means GM thinks they can handle it now and will be successful on their own. Hope that's the case!

sleeper

Well isn't Opel at least partially responsible for the fine lil 4 bangers we are running ?

I can't see burning that bridge ?

hyperv6

Well there is a lot more to this in the past and yet to come.

Many of us watching this saw this coming a couple months ago. GM was not happy as far back as August. They do not want to lose technology and property they have to the Russians.

As it stands now Germany is mad, The Russians are mad, the Germany workers are mad but all the other workers in Europe are happy. GM has to lay off a lot of people so that will make some happy and other even more mad.

The Germans,unions and Russians are going to fight but I don't think they will win. Even Putin has chimed in on this.

GM transfered many from Opel to regular GM divisions so they would have retained the talent but would have lost the brand and plants.

Note the one lead engineer from the Volt just went back to Opel right before GM anounced this.

The next 6 months will be interesting.

ChevyMgr

Maybe the new keepers at GM (the government) didn't want the Russians with their neo-stalinist government having too much new automotive technology. Their automotive industry is in complete shambles right now.

Senior

Not so sure our auto industry is much better.

hyperv6

Do you really think the same people who gave in on so many things already like missle defense plans and sold out Poland really care if the Russians get Volt and Direct Injection technology? the Russian have always stolen what thay needed anyway. Remember they copied the Packard and B29 in the past. THey have taken even more today.

I really think GM really did not want to give up Opel to start. They did what they had too and played a good game of poker. GM right now can offord to keep Opel and much of the Euro Union can not do much about it. GM got them all fighting with each other than after Germany gove them the money pulled the deal off the table.

It will be interesting to see what goes on now. Lutz has taken charge of Opel now as it was given to him to oversea.

Opel still has value to GM.

Sandmanse7en

I sure hope the Opel brand does well in Europe. Cause the last time I heard of Opel was when my dad would talk about his old Opel GT. But the Cadillac they made from that brand was horrible. Too bad for GM.