GM’s Opel marketing team in Europe is studying the market for a plan to enter the small SUV market. The new model will give Opel a rival against the Fiat Sedici and Suzuki SX4. Chevrolet is also expected to follow Opel’s move.
“There is a need for small SUVs and our marketing team has been working on this. First we need to develop a concept,” Opel Managing Director Hans Demant told Automotive News Europe.
Like the UAW releasing some GM rear-wheel drive vehicle development this weekend, Rudi Kennes, a senior official at Belgium’s ABVV union, said that the GM has already signed an agreement that a small SUV for two GM brands will go into production in the second half of 2010. Both models will be built in GM’s Antwerp, Belgium, factory.
Kennes added that the plant would produce about 120,000 units of the new model per year.
Analysts are saying that Chevrolet’s small SUV may be very close to the Trax concept we saw at the 2007 New York Auto Show in April. No word on if this small SUV is going to make it to the U.S. shores but we feel it may definitely pop-up on our roads after 2010.
