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Written by Ollie Kew
The Opel GT is a petit, gorgeous coupe but it"s not a road-going thing right now. The two-seat concept car was designed by a Brit, Mark Adams, who"s previously scribbled Vauxhall"s best-selling Insignia and sexy Monza concept, plus the Cadillac CTS. We really, really want Vauxhall and Opel to build this dinky Mazda MX-5-fighter, so here"s what Mark had to say about a real-world GT when we cornered him next to his rather lovely creation at the 2016 Geneva motor show.TG: First things first: what would have to change if you built the GT? Was your design brief remotely real-world?Mark Adams: I think the only thing that really isn"t legal right now is the graduated [slightly translucent] glass, because you"ve got to have a level of transparency in the front windows. If you tint the windows of your car too much, you"ll get nicked. However, this could be electrochromatic glass, where you control the level of opacity, so there"s no reason why it couldn"t be done.We wanted it to be real, to have substance. Take the doors they"re a one-piece construction, and we"ve got a patent for the offset hinge. It was really well thought-out and engineered. It"s not just a fly-by-night idea. We"re just using the dead space to make manufacturing easier and give a cleaner design, which we can because the car only has a small engine. It"s a 1.0-litre, 145bhp three-cylinder.Then with the lack of mirrors the laws are changing this year to allow us to have cameras instead of rear-view mirrors, so that will be a design trend.TG: Crossovers are sadly more fashionable than sports cars these days. Why distill your freshest ideas into a coupe?MA: This is a car that"s about fun. Pure and simple. Small proportions, a light, sub-1000kg kerbweight, rigidity, simplicity we felt a coupe still says all of that much better than any other type of car. Plus this could be a coupe, or a convertible
Date written: 1 Mar 2016
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 2365
The Opel GT is a petit, gorgeous coupe but it"s not a road-going thing right now. The two-seat concept car was designed by a Brit, Mark Adams, who"s previously scribbled Vauxhall"s best-selling Insignia and sexy Monza concept, plus the Cadillac CTS. We really, really want Vauxhall and Opel to build this dinky Mazda MX-5-fighter, so here"s what Mark had to say about a real-world GT when we cornered him next to his rather lovely creation at the 2016 Geneva motor show.TG: First things first: what would have to change if you built the GT? Was your design brief remotely real-world?Mark Adams: I think the only thing that really isn"t legal right now is the graduated [slightly translucent] glass, because you"ve got to have a level of transparency in the front windows. If you tint the windows of your car too much, you"ll get nicked. However, this could be electrochromatic glass, where you control the level of opacity, so there"s no reason why it couldn"t be done.We wanted it to be real, to have substance. Take the doors they"re a one-piece construction, and we"ve got a patent for the offset hinge. It was really well thought-out and engineered. It"s not just a fly-by-night idea. We"re just using the dead space to make manufacturing easier and give a cleaner design, which we can because the car only has a small engine. It"s a 1.0-litre, 145bhp three-cylinder.Then with the lack of mirrors the laws are changing this year to allow us to have cameras instead of rear-view mirrors, so that will be a design trend.TG: Crossovers are sadly more fashionable than sports cars these days. Why distill your freshest ideas into a coupe?MA: This is a car that"s about fun. Pure and simple. Small proportions, a light, sub-1000kg kerbweight, rigidity, simplicity we felt a coupe still says all of that much better than any other type of car. Plus this could be a coupe, or a convertible
Date written: 1 Mar 2016
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 2365
