Peugeot just pulled off a deal to buy control of, Adam Opel GmbH, and its UK subsidiary Vauxhall.

Tavares has just pulled off a deal to buy control of General Motors's European assets, Adam Opel GmbH, and its UK subsidiary Vauxhall. 

The deal is costing Peugeot around $2.3 billion on paper, but in reality it is a real bargain as PSA and GM already have benefits coming savings they have achieved with a partnership that is now delivering $320 million a year for the next three years, in addition to further cost cuts in the pipeline for 2020 and beyond. On top of all this, Tavares says that the deal will bring further cost savings as the two groups are integrated. The deal means that PSA has moved ahead of Renault in the European market and is behind only Volkswagen. GM has agreed the deal because it cannot make a profit in Europe, having lost more than $20 billion since 1999. The US firm is so keen to rid of its European operations that it is going to take a charge of $4 billion. Tavares has always said that if PSA is to have global ambitions it needs to be in the US market and it is rumoured that he intends to do this with the Opel brand, which sold cars in the US between 1958 and 1975, including the successful Opel GT. Until 1980 there were other cars sold as Opels, but these were built by Isuzu, while a range of GM's brands have sold Opel-designed cars. The word is that Tavares sees potential is marketing Opels in the US, marketing the cars for their German engineering, taking advantage of the success of Mercedes, BMW, Porsche and Audi. It is a good plan but will probably require some form of motorsport activity to back it up, probably in sports cars, where the other companies are already heavily involved. The same technology can, of course, be used in Europe as well. There is no great heritage in open-wheeler racer, although Peugeot did, of course, supply F1 engines in the 1990s, without much success. 

The future of the Vauxhall brand probably lies in touring cars where it has been successful in the past. The cars have been virtually identical to Opels for many years and there are fears in the UK that jobs may be lost in the UK factories after the current production plans are completed. The other motorsport which may be affected is the Australian Supercar scene as the 2018 Holden Commodore is due to be sourced from Opel.