Astra X-Treme Concept

Concept cars are all too often lame attempts at checking the validity of new models that will inevitibly be produced because they're nothing daring about them (e.g. the Mondeo ST and Street Ka).

Here though is a car so politically incorrect, that all too likely it will remain just a concept or arrive in a much diluted form. Let's hope not as it's not often that the words Opel or Astra get the blood pumping.

However, Opel have done the right thing with the X-Treme. Show me a petrolhead that doesn't appreciate a burbling V8 and I'll swap my pies for pitta bread. Drop a V8 into a small car like the Astra, latch on a couple of gull wing doors and DTM-like skirting, and all of a sudden grown men reveal their hidden Max Power-like desires.  This car is has all the right ingredients for a street racer that really means business. This is no Golf GTi with a baked bean can exhaust, this is the Daddy.

The road-going two-seater is based on the Astra Coupé V8 racing car that has been successfully competing in the German Touring Car Masters (DTM). With its 4.0-litre V8 driving the rear wheels and a sequential, six-speed transaxle gearbox, the engineers at OPC (Opel Performance Center) have taken over the thoroughbred racing technology of the DTM car and applied it to the road. The powerplant provides the stunning red concept car with 440bhp  taking it to a top speed of over 185mph.

Among the eye-catching features of the Astra Coupé OPC X-Treme are the gull-wing doors which, supported by gas-filled struts, swing gently upwards. The powerful coupé rolls on specially developed and implausibly anorexic 20-inch tyres (265/30 ZR 20 at the front and 305/25 / R 20 at the rear).

Based on the same engineering as the DTM car, the study not only proves its suitability for the road, but Opel claims it also demonstrates the synergies that are possible between motor racing and series production. "With this super sports car concept, Opel is underlining its engineering expertise and, at the same time, displaying its commitment to motor sports", said OPC racing manager, Volker Strycek.

Let's hope this concept really does make it to the high streets of Britain and not in a watered down manner either. This car wants to be burbling outside the Post Office scaring grannies.

Link: www.geneva2001.opel.com