The Americans Are Interested in Vauxhall

Or are they?

Most of the American sites I follow are very interested in the Vauxhall Cascada - they are even showing photos of right-hand-drive cars with British Number Plates.

Although the Google images that stood out for me when I searched were this one of the Cascada's early predecessor, the Vauxhall Cavalier Convertible:

and this one apparently of a Singer Cascada:

I remember Singer cars from my youth but don't remember one that pretty - actually - I'll take that back - the later (1970s) Singer Rapiers were nice. Singer were part of the Rootes group who eventually found themselves under the ownership of PSA Peugeot-Citroen.

But I have digressed somewhat. Or have I?

The reason that America is so interested in this Vauxhall is that it may well get re-badged as a Buick Regal over there. Here is the Fox News story on it.

The Buick Regal, of course, should not be confused with the Reliant Regal:

Vauxhall, or as it is known in the rest of the World, Opel, is GM's loss-making, European arm - hence the interest in the Cascada being the new Regal soft-top. The GM accountants, however, are more interested in the loss-making part of that sentence - and a possible solution has been mooted this week. This Autocar story covers it quite well. It talks of a possible merger between Vauxhall-Opel & Peugeot-Citroen although GM would only own 30% of the new organisation.

I don't like the sound of this - it sounds more like a take-over and given the model-range overlap would probably lead to some factory closures - and probably not in France.

The article states that "According to Automotive News Europe, this tentative plan is said to have been one of a number of ideas being considered by the management teams of PSA and GM, including selling Opel outright to PSA or GM buying PSA’s automotive division"

I guess it will all come down to whether or not the Americans are interested in Vauxhall.