Pricing for New Opel Astra Lower Than VW Golf

4 Comments 15 September 2009

By Brendan Moore

09.15.2009

2010 Opel Astra 1

Opel announced during today’s unveiling of the Opel Astra at the Frankfurt Auto Show that it would price their new Astra a surprising 600 euros lower than the VW Golf, a substantial difference in the lower end of the market.

Opel executives said that they intend for the Astra to remain one of the top three cars in Europe in terms of sales volume, and, are obviously serious about that goal in light of the pricing announcement.

The new Astra is built on the new “Delta” platform at GM, which also does duty in the new Chevrolet Volt and the Chevrolet Cruze.

The new Astra is a very important car to the new owners of Opel, Magna and Sberbank – it is the number one selling car for Opel and Vauxhall, Opel’s British subisidiary. A successful Astra will go a long way towards making a successful Opel.

2010 Opel Astra 8

And, although Opel will now be only an affiliate of General Motors in the future, the Astra is important to GM as well.

The 2010 Astra enters a somewhat humbled European market that has experienced some minor gains lately, but is not expected by many industry analysts to return to 2007 sales levels until 2012 or 2013.

The 10-day Frankfurt car show kicks off with their press days, which are happening now; Sept. 17 will have suppliers’ events and exihibitions, and, Sept. 19, the show opens to the public. The show has 781 companies participating, down 7% from last year, due to the economic crunch.

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Your Comments

4 Comments so far

JerryF says:

September 15, 2009 at 14:30

Too bad Saturn dropped the Astra.
mets4ever says:

September 15, 2009 at 17:05

Too bad Saturn couldn’t sell any Astras. It’a good car, but unknown in America, and Saturn’s puny dealer network and small marketing budget ensured it’s exit.
Beat-Nick says:

September 15, 2009 at 20:55

It’s not lik the Golf sets any sale records in America either.
Mirko says:

September 18, 2009 at 11:21

The Astra has been significantly cheaper than the Golf as long as I think. I’m sure it’s more than 600€ if you compare well-equipped cars now, with the crazy options packages on Opels these days.

The Golf just sold 31,527 units in Germany in August. Which is a neat 11.5% of the German new car market. Versus the Astra’s 6,203/2.25%. And the Astra is the second best selling compact in Germany. (#3 compact is the BMW 1-series at 4,959 units)

I’d like to see sales numbers for North America’s Volkswagen sales.

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