General Motors’ brand new Opel Astra GTC has been unveiled more than two months ahead of its world premiere at the 64th International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany. The latest member of Opel’s Astra family will go on sale across Europe later this year, and may go to the States under the Buick brand. GM’s European subsidiary is confident about its new Astra GTC with Vauxhall and goes as far as to claim that it will “lay down the gauntlet to VW’s Scirocco and Renault’s Megane Coupe with a heady mix of dynamic excellence, dramatic design features and competitive pricing".

The GTC version sports a more athletic appearance than the rest of the Astra range, thanks to a body that sports a more rakish roofline. According to Opel, the only elements the GTC shares with its 5 door and estate siblings are the door handles and roof aerial. Compared to the 5 door Astra, the ride height of the GTC is lowered by 15 mm while the wheelbase grows by 10 mm. The tracks are wider by 40mm at the front and 30mm at the rear. Opel said that the Astra GTC is more of a driver’s car than the 5 door model as the engineers have made several changes to the chassis including the adoption of the High Performance Strut setup used on the 325HP Insignia OPC/VXR instead of the standard McPherson suspension. At the rear, the GTC continues to use a Watt’s link axle with optional fully-adaptive FlexRide chassis control system that comes with a choice of Standard, Tour or Sport setting.

Diesel option is limited to a 2.0-liter CDTI common-rail turbo unit delivering 165hp and 380 Nm of torque in overboost function. Linked to six speed manual transmission, it performs the century sprint in 8.9 seconds with a top speed of 210 km/h. Thanks to the start/stop system, the car returns a combined fuel consumption of 4.9L/100km with corresponding CO2 emissions of 129 g/km. The most powerful engine is a 1.6 liter turbocharged gasoline unit with 180hp, linked to a six speed manual gearbox. It allows the GTC to achieve a top speed of 220km/h. A 1.4 liter turbocharged four cylinder engine with either 120hp or 140hp completes the petrol lineup. Opel said more powertrains will be offered around its world premiere at the Frankfurt Motor Show, adding that the sportiest versions including the future high-performance OPC model will follow in 2012. My guess is that it could sport a 2.0 Turbo inline 4.





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