Opel Boss Carl-Peter Forster Calls It Quits

Carl-Peter Forster, GM group vice president and president of Opel, will be leaving his role as head of the European operation and will advise the company during the transition to find a new CEO, it was announced today. With the departure of Forster, GM will initiate an immediate external search for a new CEO for Opel. Expected to replace him, believe it or not, is GM's Bob Lutz. The move comes just days after GM decided to keep Opel rather than selling it to a consortium of buyers led by Magna International and Russia's Sberbank. No other management changes to the Opel organization are being considered at this time, and that all key management roles remain while the search for a new CEO continues. Perhaps most telling in the whole fiasco, GM still has plans for Opel cars here in the U.S. Although Saturn was previously the primary outlet for re-badged Opels in America, Buick recently confirmed a redesigned Insignia to be sold as the Regal. For more on what may be in store for that car, read up on our preview story here. [General Motors]

By Piro #1, Posted: 11/7/2009

WOW GM..
dont you get it, we HATE you here in europe
leve OPEL in peace and let them build OPEL as OPEL
and no re-re -re band buick and saturn and so on..
OPEL is GERMAN and yuo just use it for make mony to have economy to bulid stupide BIG US cars that no one wonts
By scorpion #2, Posted: 11/7/2009

WOW piro....where have you been hiding? GM has owned opel for everal years, this is not a "new" developement. you do have a good point about them building cars we dont want though, bt, the cars we want cant be sold here for number of reasons. i would love the oppertunity to walk into an opel dealership here in the states and buy an insignia, but, i dont see it happening untill the opel line can be made good enough to be considered "road worthy" here.
by Carl Thelin #3, Posted: 11/7/2009

Go easy there Piro. Bob Lutz was born in Switzerland. He has had major roles in GM-Europe, Ford-Europe, BMW and was even with Chrysler Corp. Besides all that, he flew for the US Marine Corp.
By Piro #4, Posted: 11/8/2009

road worthy??? open your eyes Cadilac Catera that car is clean OPEL OMEGA with cadilac grill. lot of Saturns like Astra is Opel with saturn gril the same story is with Buic. So pleas ,if they are worthy here in Europe they are worty over seas too ..
the hole thing is about money,
And Carl i dont care where he was born guy is useless
By dan #8, Posted: 11/9/2009

Piro take a shower us deodorant and chill out. Opel was salvaged by GM from the heap! Lets all get along and work together in an International alliance!