Buick has announced that it’s bringing a high(er)-performance GS version of its Opel Insignia-based Buick Regal to the Detroit Auto Show, and later, to the US market. And for once we’re left wishing we were getting a rebadge. After all, for the first several years of US sales, Insignias will be imported from Germany, meaning GM could easily have brought the thoroughly mad Insignia VXR/OPC as a quick-and-dirty (if not cheap) rebadge. After all, the point of the Regal (and especially the GS) is that “we’re trying to rebuild the performance credentials that Buick once held,” as GM reps put it. The European OPC/VXR version gets a 325 HP version of the turbocharged V6 found in the SRX and Saab TurboX, while the GS gets only a 255 hp version of the 2.0 Turbo found in the Solstice GXP. That engine can reportedly be tuned to an easy 310 hp and 300 lb-ft of torque, making the “base” Regal CXL with the 220 hp 2.0T engine a much smarter buy. Unless the idea of tuning a Buick is simply more cognitive dissonance than you can handle. Otherwise, the only thing the GS really brings to the table is AWD and a bodykit with more front-end venting than the United States Senate. Still, if you’re young enough to not get a discount at Denny’s and you have to own a Buick, the Regal is the way to go… especially once an enterprising tuner starts offering Opel badging and grilles in the US market.

Europe’s auto capacity is staggeringly underutilized, as political pressure to protect jobs stacks overcapacity upon overcapacity. Analysts lay out the gory details at Automotive News [sub]: Global Insight says European production capacity is currently at 59 percent, while PriceWaterhouseCoopers figures excess production is 6.8 million vehicles. Assuming an average production of 300,000 units per plant, over 20 of Europe’s 100 major auto plants will have to go to bring supply back in line with demand. Though Saab’s seemingly imminent closure should take a first step towards a European coming-to-terms with its unreformed auto industry, the Opel deal is starting to look like an opportunity that GM could be too state-aid-dependent to take advantage of.

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GM was supposed to have a restructuring plan for Opel in place by the end of December, but it’s looking like that deadline is DOA. In a blog post at GM Europe’s “Driving Conversations” blog, GME supremo Nick Reilly explains:

While it is indeed exciting to see that things are coming together, bear in mind this is going to be one of the largest, most complex industrial reorganisations in European manufacturing in years. It will affect thousands of people and their families; impact plants and other stakeholders.

We are determined to do this right. We must do this right. Although we had hoped to have the new business model finalised in December, it appears that more work needs to be done and further consultations will not be rushed.

I said earlier that we would have a plan in place by year-end. Now it looks like an announcement may slip into January. This is not a broken promise. It is a pledge to do something right.

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How spurious is this one? Let me count the ways. First of all, it’s an Auto Express illustration, which makes it pretty spurious to begin with. Second, it’s of a possible (and unrumored) CUV designed on the Volt Chassis. and Third, it’s based on the Opel/Vauxhall version of the Volt, the Ampera…. and there’s no guarantee that GM will share the Volt platform with its independence-craving European division. Still, it’s worth a shared giggle between consenting adults.

Automotive News [sub] reports that GM will rush out its $4.9b restructuring plan for Opel in December, as it seeks to ease worries on the continent about the fate of the troubled division. “Our plan is very similar to Magna’s. I don’t think it’s worse,” GM’s Nick Reilly told reporters near Opel’s largest plant in Zaragoza, Spain. Reily has said that as many as 10,000 jobs and 20 to 25 percent of Opel’s production capacity could be cut in the restructuring. Though Reilly refused to indicate where cuts could take place, he did say that GM would not transfer production from Zaragoza to Eisenach in eastern Germany, as Magna had planned to do. He also previously implied that British government loans could prevent or mitigate a planned 800-job cut at Opel’s Vauxhall operations in Britain.

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GM Europe’s head, Nick Reilly, has suggested that the job losses at Vauxhall UK may not be as bad as was feared. Before GM did a U-turn with the sale of Vauxhall/Opel, Magna agreed with Vauxhall to cut 800 jobs, no forced redundancies, and keep the Luton and Ellesmere Port plants open. Then, GM realised they liked Vauxhall/Opel so much, they kept the company and put its European operations back at square one. So far, with “New GM” in control, the results can be summed up in 4 words: Annoyed the German government.

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