New Vauxhall GTX
Bold new look sets Luton’s future
Vauxhall-opel has revealed a sporty new B-segment SUV concept at its design centre in Rüsselsheim, Germany. Dubbed the GTX, it has been produced to give a clear view of a changing design language for the evolving brand.
The GTX, which is “far more than just a concept car” according to its maker, has been planned both to mark Vauxhall-opel’s acquisition by the PSA Group and to demonstrate that much greater design freedom is coming to future new Vauxhall and Opel vehicles.
Though quite different in its proportions, the new GTX bears an obvious similarity to Vauxhall’s previous muchpraised concept, the two-door GT coupé, for which a successor was always promised. The GTX (the ‘X’ to convey a crossover function) is much more practical, having a fully designed cockpit that features generous seating for four and reasonable boot space, even within a petite 4.06-metre overall length that makes it around 14cm shorter than Vauxhall’s current B-segment SUV, the Mokka.
The GTX is a front-wheeldrive pure electric car, with a 50kwh battery carried beneath on a classic ‘skateboard’ layout. In production, this would give it a range and performance along the lines of the latest Nissan Leaf – something company bosses say Autocar will eventually be able to verify by driving it – and designers
say the underpinnings bear no resemblance to any current Vauxhall-opel car.
“Don’t think of GTX as a production car,” says the group’s British design director, Mark Adams. “Actually, it’s more important than that. We’re calling it a brand manifesto: a representative of our design vision for the company’s whole portfolio.
“Before we embarked on this exercise, we did a series of concept sketches to be sure its elements could extend to every one of our cars – and we only proceeded with GTX once we were sure of that. You won’t see this car in our showrooms, but you’ll certainly see much of its influence in future, right through the range.”
The GTX offers up a more delicate profile than rival SUVS, mostly because the latter need to provide so much space for the engine and transmission. The GTX rides high but has very short overhangs, and its radically ‘waisted’ body gives it the impression of lightness.
The predominant body colour is a light grey, but a very dark blue covers the so-called ‘technical areas’, namely the battery location below the cockpit and the bonnet.
Twin yellow flashes run either side of the bonnet and over the sides of the roof, echoing sports-oriented Vauxhalls of the past. They also encompass a large see-through roof panel.
Sit inside and you find the screen pillars are thinner than the production car norm. The view over the bonnet is panoramic; it is set low enough to allow for a thin air scoop running across the base of the windscreen, feeding air to the GTX’S HVAC system.
The GTX also transfers over a couple of previously used design devices. The first is the wide ‘Vizor’ front end treatment, stretching across the front with a near-opaque panel to house the matrix headlights and to cover additional features like cameras and radar for a semiautonomous driving system.
The second is the ‘Pure Panel’, consisting of a simple screen the size of a normal instrument layout incorporating all major functions, and operable by voice, touch and wheelmounted switches. The seats can be adjusted by eyetracking, while there’s a headup display for the driver.
The GTX also offers a neat system for ingress and egress. Each of the ‘clap hands’ doors – which need no centre pillar – is
We’re calling it a brand manifesto: a representative of our design vision for the company’s whole portfolio
suspended on a single large hinge, allowing occupants’ legs and feet to swing easily into and out of the cabin. The front seats are suspended on rails running along the car’s centre console, which bring better foot room for rear passengers.
There’s even a display on each exterior sill, with LED triangles showing the car’s current battery condition and whether it’s charging or not. Other clever features include rear-facing cameras that pop out of the yellow rails on the bonnet to take the place of mirrors, while aluminium covers partially conceal the sidewalls and make them look like low-profile tyres.
Vauxhall-opel intends to stress the GTX’S significance to its future by putting it on public display in each of its most important markets, starting with Germany and the UK.
“This is no ordinary concept,” says Adams, “it’s a rallying cry. It’s the pride of our brand on wheels. We designed and built it ourselves to demonstrate what we could do. Small but believable concept cars can be hard to do – people expect scale and flamboyance – but we’re really proud of this one.”