Leaked sketches reveal entire Opel Ampera look thanks to OAMI
by Sebastian Blanco on Feb 18th 2009 at 11:50AM 
Click above for a gallery of the Opel Ampera
We got our first teaser look at the production version of the European Chevy Volt, aka the Opel Ampera, in late January. Now, thanks to the regulatory database run by the Office for Harmonization of the Internal Market (OHIM), the official European Union agency responsible for registering trademarks and designs for EU companies, we can get a much better idea of what the Ampera will look like. Short version: a Volt with the parenthesis headlights of the Flextreme concept. We don't expect big surprises with the underlying Voltec technology.
Our friends at Autoblog en Epanol have a nice pictorial spread showing the differences and similarities between the Ampera and the Volt. You'll be able to understand everything without knowing one lick of Spanish (read the post in Google-translated English here). We'll see the Ampera for ourselves - and bring you live pics - once we get to Geneva in early March. Until then, check out the Ampera in the gallery below.
Gallery: Opel Ampera leaked sketches
[Source: Autoblog en Epanol]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tim 11:59AM (2/18/2009)
And GM only wants a total of $30 Billion! What a deal!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKKHSAE1gIs
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Yikes 12:03PM (2/18/2009)
it cost a lot of money to design a different badge for Opel to slap on the front of a Chevrolet Volt.
Tim 12:13PM (2/18/2009)
Could somebody explain to me why GM needs the Opel brand when Chevy is a “global product”?
Isn’t producing the exact same car with a different headlight treatment expensive Redundancy which only increases GM costs and lengthens their tooling ROI?
Why don't they just produce twice as many Volts instead of making both Opel and Chevy “Volts”?
Sounds like a HUGE waste of taxpayer money in a shrinking market.
Yikes 12:33PM (2/18/2009)
When someone finishing explaining why GM needs Opel.
Explain Vaxhaul, Holden, Pontiac, Buick, Hummer, Saab, Daewoo, Saturn, GMC.......
Nick 8:17PM (2/18/2009)
Yeah I dont' get how GM wants to keep Chevrolet AND GMC......since they're both the same product with different badges.
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StudioTools 7:21AM (2/19/2009)
Those AREN'T sketches you fools, those are renderings from the math surface model.
I know you're just bloggers on a "green" site, so that automatically makes you overly opinionated and under-informed on the facts.
You call yourselves auto "journalists"? You don't even know the basics of how they're created... sad...
Is it "Global Warming" or "Global Numbing"?
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DasBoese 3:03PM (2/19/2009)
>Could somebody explain to me why GM needs the Opel brand
>when Chevy is a “global product”?
Because Chevrolet Europe =/= Chevrolet NA. Chevrolet in Europe is an entry-level brand only, consisting mainly of GM Daewoo models. For the same reason the Corvette isn't sold as a Chevrolet in Europe but has its own brand.
Opel, on the other hand, has a good presence in the middle class, and is moving even more up market with recent models like the new Insignia.
Simply put: People in Europe won't pay 35,000 Euros for a Chevrolet EREV, but they will for an Opel.
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