It depends if this new goverment is prepared to help out the opel workforce in the UK which I doubt in this present climate of cuts.The germans will fight tooth and nail for these jobs and they have powerfull unions to speak for the workers.I hope there are no job losses in the UK we have enough unemployment here.Why are these cars not selling?We where looking at a vauxhall/opel a few months ago dealership where not very helpfull and interested,could be one of the reason there cars are not selling as they should.I remember the opel record opel captain good cars in their day.

"....Opel have the worst at nearly 40% down overall."

Sorry to any Vauxhall fans out there, but this doesn't surprise me. There just aren't enough good reasons to buy one, and I haven't in 40 years of owning cars.

If you look at road tests comparing a Vauxhall with, say, the equivalent Ford and VW, the Ford wins on driver appeal and the VW on build quality and solidity. The Vauxhall usually comes out second or third best - and having test-driven many (to make sure it isn't just prejudice!) I have to agree.

Vauxhall sales are mainly to fleets, where good deals are available for bulk purchases: I think this is keeping Vauxhall UK sales up, and there probably hasn't been a 40 % drop over here. This may represent Ellesmere Port's best hope of keeping going (where the new Astra is made). Luton - I wish I could be so sure.

Edited by Avant on 20/07/2010 at 00:06