1972 Opel Gt on 2040-cars

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Stellantis wants to outfit cars with AI software to drive revenue

MILAN — Carmaker Stellantis announced a strategy Tuesday to embed AI-enabled software in 34 million vehicles across its 14 brands, hoping the tech upgrade will help it bring in 20 billion euros ($22.6 billion) in annual revenue by 2030. CEO Carlos Tavares heralded the move as part of a strategy that would transform the car company into a “sustainable mobility tech company,” with business growth coming from features and services tied to the internet. That includes using voice commands to activate navigation, make payments and order products online. The company is expanding existing partnerships with BMW on partially automated driving, iPhone manufacturer Foxconn on customized cockpits and Waymo to push their autonomous driving work into light commercial vehicle delivery fleets. StellantisÂ’ embrace of artificial intelligence and expansion of software-enabled vehicles is part of a broad transformation in the auto industry, with a race toward more fully electric and hybrid propulsion systems, more autonomous driving features and increased connectivity in automobiles. Ford and General Motors also are banking on dramatically increased revenue from similar online subscription services. But the automakers face immense competition for monthly consumer spending from movie and music streaming services, news outlets, Amazon Prime and others. Stellantis, which was formed from the combination of PSA Peugeot and FCA Fiat Chrysler, said the software would seamlessly integrate into customers' lives, with the capability of live updates providing upgraded services over time. New products will include the possibility to subscribe to automated driving features, purchase usage-based car insurance or even increase the power of the vehicle with a tune-up to add horsepower. As a baseline, Stellantis generates 400 million euros in revenue on software-generated services installed in 12 million vehicles. To meet the targets, Stellantis will expand its software engineering team of 1,000 to 4,500 in North America, Asia and Europe. More than 1,000 of the expanded team will be retrained in house. Stellantis also announced a new partnership with Foxconn to develop semiconductors to cover 80% of the companyÂ’s needs and simplify the supply chain. The first microchips from the partnership are targeted to be installed in vehicles in 2024.

The Opel GT is the concept General Motors should build for the US

Now is the time. General Motors should double-down on performance cars and build the Opel GT concept that's set to debut next week at the Geneva Motor Show. Better yet, sell it in the United States as the Chevy GT. Consumers are showing a thirst for performance cars not seen in decades. Ford has them coming in waves, with everything from the F-150 Raptor to a hotted-up Fusion. FCA US is unrepentantly building loads of Hellcats. GM should respond. The General's cupboard is hardly bare. With the Corvette, Camaro, and Cadillac's V-Series, GM has more than enough to compete with its crosstown rivals and anything Europe or Japan can throw at it. But there's also an opportunity. There's not many front-mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive, two-seat sports cars out there like the Opel GT concept. A Chevy GT that used that layout and captured some of the concept car's proportions and curves would ignite a different kind of passion in enthusiasts. It would be Miata-like. With Chevy branding, this sports car would be the everyday exotic. The concept has a turbocharged 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine, which makes about 143 horsepower to motivate a structure that weighs less than 2,200 pounds. It can hit 60 miles per hour in less than eight seconds. All of those numbers are within the front-engined Miata's territory. This new Opel is inspired by two great mid-1960s concepts that helped put its design studio, and that of its sister brand, the British Vauxhall, on the map. (The GT concept is also technically a Vauxhall, as the brands are linked in GM's European strategy.) One of them, the '66 Vauxhall XVR remained a concept. The '65 Opel Experimental GT was on the road by 1968. That shows this is doable. There's precedent. The Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice shared a chassis with a modern GT during that trio's brief run. If GM ever makes this concept, Opel and Vauxhall should get their versions. But Chevy is the one that could make this car a global icon. Chevrolet GT. Make it happen. News & Analysis News: The potential return of the Ford Bronco is generating a ton of attention. Analysis: That's not news, per se. But when the Bronco6G.com fan site did a rendering of a next-generation Bronco, it almost broke the Internet. Everyone from Automotive News to Jalopnik picked up the illustrations. Our own post has drawn a lot of traffic and passionate responses. People are clamoring for the Bronco's return.

Junkyard Gem: 1971 Opel GT

Beginning in the late 1950s, General Motors made a serious push to sell cars made by its European subsidiaries in the United States. American Pontiac dealers got the Vauxhall Victor from the United Kingdom, while Buick dealers received the Opel Olympia from West Germany. Opel sales here became reasonably strong during the 1960s, and one of the most interesting Opels of all showed up in the United States as a 1969 model: the GT two-seat sports car. Here's a faded but still recognizable red GT found in a Northern California car graveyard recently. The Opel GT came out of a period of inspired GM designs that led to the Pontiac XP-833 Banshee and C3 Chevrolet Corvette; its most important styling influence was the Chevrolet Corvair Monza GT prototype of 1962. It was sold here for the 1969 through 1969 model years and was considered something of a mini-Corvette, sold alongside the mini-Camaro Opel Manta. The GT looked radical, but it shared its chassis design and running gear with the Opel Kadett (albeit with the engine moved nearly 16" to the rear). The Kadett connection made it cheap to build, and the MSRP for the 1971 GT was $3,339 (about $26,358 in 2024 dollars). The GT was powered by a cam-in-head 1.9-liter straight-four engine, rated at 90 horsepower and 111 pound-feet. The cam-in-head design was something of a mashup between an overhead-valve rig (with the camshaft in the engine block and actuating the valves via pushrods up into the cylinder head) and an overhead-cam design (with the camshaft in the cylinder head and directly actuating the valves). As this photograph shows with great clarity, the camshaft in a cam-in-head engine lives in the cylinder head but off to the side of the valves, actuating them with lifters shoving directly against good old pushrod-style rocker arms. The cam-in-head engine proved to be something of an evolutionary dead end, although Ford used its cam-in-head CVH straight-four in the U.S.-market Focus all the way through 2004. A four-speed manual transmission was standard equipment. A three-speed automatic was available as a $196 option ($1,547 after inflation). The GT had no decklid, which proved annoying in the real world. There was a carpeted area for cargo behind the rear seats. The hidden headlights didn't pop up, instead rotating 180° into position via a handle under the dash. The interior in this one is largely missing, and the body is in rough shape after decades of outdoor storage.