Opel has been the focus of a lot of squabbling inside GM as of late. The brand is underperforming and proving to be a pretty gigantic money pit. Analysts are telling GM to get rid of it as soon as humanly possible.
But it seems like GM may have a secret little plan up its sleeve to fix the problem.
You may remember that earlier this year GM made an investment in the automobile side of PSA Peugeot Citroen, the French automaking conglomerate responsible for some of the quirkiest and coolest cars on the road, like the Citroen DS5. That thing is the tits.
Through the power of Google Translate (since my French is limited to "omelette du fromage," which I learned from Dexter's Laboratory and means "cheese omelette"), we have learned that PSA and GM are looking at creating a 50/50 joint venture that would include Opel and the car portion of PSA.
The benefit for GM, which already owns seven percent of PSA, is that Opel would be part of a larger entity that already knows how to sell cars in Europe. PSA would also be helped by GM's massive presence in China. That should alleviate the fact that Peugeot and Opel are basically direct competitors.
It would take about four years for the first joint products to come out of a partnership, which means that PSA would be shackled with the current money losing Opel lineup for the foreseeable future. But perhaps the tradeoff in the long run would be worth the short term difficulties.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
(Hat Tip to @nytjamescobb and @justinhyde!)