Are Buick planning to put 2.0T into Buick Excelle to give us a three door hot hatch?

Shanghai GM, Spy Shots | Ash | October 10, 2011 at 10:34 am

The Chinese hot hatch market is a desperate place, on one side you have the VW Golf GTI, on the other side you have exactly nothing. VAG has stolen the lime light with hot hatches, they introduce the Golf GTI, the Skoda Octavia VRS and the Polo GTI is expected to join them soon, God only knows what Ford are doing, perhaps they will one day wake up and make a Focus RS in China, but GM are planning to play catch up with VAG with the possible introduction of a three door Buick Excelle with turbo power.

Buick already offer the Excelle with a power pumping 184bhp 1.6T engine, but a leak from the siv-like Chinese patent office indicates that GM are readying the Opel Astra (aka Buick Excelle) in three door form and packing a 2.0T engine – an engine capable of 220bhp in a tiny car.

If Buick does bring out this model in China, then you can bet your hat that VW’s reign as hot hatch champ will come to a swift end, especially if Buick manages to get the luxury-sports ratio right and also the pricing is reasonable.

Ash

Ash came to China at 18 on a whim and never left. Some 10 years later he collected a degree and a family along the way and now focuses his time on watching the Chinese car industry develop. He has witnessed the market change from being minor backyard market in to the world's biggest and most important market for all car manufacturers. You can contact or connect with him via Linkedin by clicking the 'Website' link.

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