Rüsselsheim. The Opel GT Concept, a star at this year’s Geneva Motor Show, continues the brand’s strong concept car tradition and embodies avant-garde design in a purist form. This has now also been recognized by the German Design Council, organizer of the renowned Automotive Brand Contest. The competition’s top-notch jury chose the sportscar of the future in the “Concepts” category for the “Best of Best” award. In addition, there were three more first prizes for Opel: The dealer event “Mission Astra” also received the “Best of Best” award. The personal connectivity and service assistant, Opel OnStar and the new configurator for mobile devices also won in the “Future Mobility & Parts” and “Digital” categories. For the Opel GT Concept Mark Adams, Vice President Opel/Vauxhall Design, will accept the award on September 29 at the Paris Motor Show.
“The GT Concept is a dream car that takes Opel’s philosophy ‘sculptural artistry meets German precision’ to the next level. The feedback has been simply overwhelming. My team and I are proud that our sportscar study is being honored as the best concept car of 2016 with the Automotive Brand Award,” says Mark Adams.
First presented at the Geneva Motor Show in March, the GT Concept pays homage to the sports coupé icon, the first Opel GT, and is a trendsetter for the brand’s further development. The breathtaking athlete showcases Opel’s future design language: bold, emotional and sporty. The study with compact dimensions is avant-garde yet purist.
Three first prizes for innovation
In addition to the design prize, Opel also picked up three wins in the marketing area. The jury gave the “Best of Best” award in the “events” category to “Mission Astra”. This was the name of the Astra launch event for Opel dealers, which was located in the Spanish Sierra Nevada. The dealers spent two days there as “Astranauts”, overnighting in 250 futuristic tents in the desert.
“We always want to offer our dealers something different and that is why we came up with a really unusual idea for the launch of the new Astra. With a tent-city next to a racetrack, which resembled a lunar landscape, we created an event that money actually cannot buy” says Opel Chief Marketing Officer, Tina Müller and is happy that the courageous marketing concept thrilled not only the Opel dealers, but also the jury of the Automotive Brand Concept.
Moreover, the Opel OnStar personal connectivity and service assistant won first prize in the category “Future Mobility & Parts”. The jury further underlined the importance of digitalization by presenting another Automotive Brand award for the mobile configurator, with which customers can personalize their preferred Opel from nearly anywhere.
The Automotive Brand Contest is an international design competition for automobile brands. Established as a foundation in 1953, the German Design Council honors outstanding product and communication design and draws attention to the fundamental importance of brand design in the automotive industry.
