In 1993, at the Opel booth at the Frankfurt Motor Show, a small two-door sports car attracted the attention of many automotive media around the world. At that time, the author could only know such a sports car through the Hong Kong version of Automobile Magazine, but as for its o

993 , at the Opel booth at the Frankfurt Motor Show, there was a small two-door sports car that attracted the attention of many automotive media around the world. At that time, the author could only know such a sports car through the Hong Kong version of the Automobile Magazine, but as for its origin, he could only learn from the exhibition reports of just a few dozen words.

006 , the first time I set foot in Italy as a media person to attend the new product launch of a well-known auto parts brand. Although the time difference when I got off the plane made me dizzy, I still remember that at the gas station, I saw an Opel sports car full of traces. Of course, when my colleagues around me were surprised, I had already remembered its name: Opel Tigra.

014 , which means that this car has appeared for 20 years. On the way to interviews and business trips in Germany, I actually had a chance to get into its driver's seat and appreciate that the modified Tigra Turbo turned out to be so fun. Its chassis is very simple. The front Maihuachen, rear torsion beam, and shock absorber have also been on an unknown European brand. The comfort is not at all, and it is even hard. But surprisingly, a 20-year-old car has no fatigue at all. Even when it has to withstand torque of more than 200 horsepower and 25 kilograms of meters, the frame has no complaints at all. Coupled with the pleasing interior layout, all this seems to make the ignorant pursuit of the student days become real.

Picture: This official picture was almost the photo that most car media used.

is , it is called Opel Tigra, it is easy to get confused with Tiger's Tiger, although I can't figure out what the word really means. The car was built on the chassis of the second-generation Opel Corsa B at that time, and the mechanical part was almost all from Corsa. The appearance part was led by Hideo Kodama, a Japanese engineer at the Opel Style Center, and was assembled at the General Vehicle Factory in Zaragoza, Spain. The biggest highlight of the whole car is the rear window designed and produced by Italy's Società Italiana Vetro. SIV is an expert in making automotive glass. Founded in 1962, it is the second largest automotive glass manufacturer in Europe. Its market share is second only to Saint-Gobain. Its customers include Fiat, Renault, Citroen, Luhua, BMW, etc. And the Opel Tigra's unique rear window glass is made by them.

Picture: The body of the Tigra belongs to the three-door rear shape, but its rear window glass has a huge curve, which also increases the production cost of the entire car. However, for small sports cars, cost-effectiveness is not the first consideration.

Picture: After the concept car was launched under the name of Tigra in 1993, it became very popular. After all, it did not have many competitors at that time, only Fiat Coupe and Toyota Paseo. As for Renault's Megane Coach and Ford Puma, they are all its descendants. The body length of

Tigra is only 3920mm, less than 4 meters, and the wheelbase is 2429mm, which is slightly shorter than its basic development car Corsa B. But although it seems to be a small body, it actually successfully achieved a 2+2 passenger compartment layout, and it can sit in two 1.6 meters tall passengers in the rear row, which is actually a bit amazing. It adopts the front-wheel drive layout with the front wheels, with the front wheels using McPherson suspension and the rear wheels as torque beams. However, because General Motors and Lotus were hot at that time, this small car with Sportscar positioning would also be handed over to Lotus to train it. However, because the weight of the car body increased by about 150 kilograms compared to the Corsa, it was a luxury to really think it had the extreme handling performance that a sports car should have. At least it wouldn't be too ugly in the 1990s when sports cars were boutique.

Picture: In fact, the Tigra chassis is not complicated and has nothing new. It just changed a B-class car into a sports car, but it shows more of a creativity.There are only two combinations of

power system. The earliest one to be launched was the 1.4-liter X14XE engine with a cylinder bore 77.6mm, a stroke 73.4mm, an exhaust volume of 1389cc, a DOHC gas distribution mechanism, 4 valves per cylinder, a Multec-XS multi-point fuel injection system, a compression ratio of 10.5, a maximum horsepower of 90 horsepower/6000 rpm, and a maximum torque of 125 Nm/4000 rpm. As for the 1.6-liter X16XE engine model, we know that it was launched only in August 1998. The engine is the same as the Corsa GSi, with a cylinder bore of 79mm, a stroke of 81.5mm, an exhaust volume of 1598cc, and a DOHC 16 valve layout, with a maximum horsepower of 106 horsepower/6000 rpm and a maximum torque of 148 Nm/4000 rpm. Both use a five-speed manual transmission (optional 4AT), but the gear ratio of the gearbox is slightly different. The first gear ratio of the 1.6L version has a larger gear ratio, a smaller second and third gear, and the fourth and fifth gears are the same, so it also makes the 20 kg more weight of the 1.6L version can break 100 in 10.5 seconds, although it is more than Corsa due to weight. GSi is slow, but if you really want this kind of sports car that uses transportation as the main purpose to pose a brave and fierce attitude, then they can only choose to modify and turboize. This is also the way to play the German modification store mentioned earlier. The 1.6L engine plug-in turbocharger kit can easily exceed 200 horsepower and more than 25 kilograms of torque to push the weight of a car that is more than one ton.

Figure: I found a complete turbocharged kit for use in Tigra 1.6 for your reference. The upper side-mounted intercooler is a special installation method.

First-generation Tigra is a personalized sports car in Europe by GM, and it will naturally be exported to other regions for sale. It is inevitable to sell it to the UK under the name Vauxhall. On the streets of Brazil and Mexico, it has the Chevrolet logo. As for whether it has entered the United States, this is not carefully considered. Anyway, when talking to American car friends, they said that they have never heard of this car being sold. The first-generation Tigra A was launched in March 1994, stopped production in October 1999, and sold until July 2001, with a total of 256,000 units sold. The small sports car wave set off by Tigra actually swept the European car scene at that time. With it, it almost made many models of the same level unsustainable. It is said that in the UK, Ford knew that Tigra was discontinued and was excited to launch two orange Focus and Ka to celebrate. We don’t think this is called “emotional appreciation”, but it is more like Ford shouting: “You are finally willing to leave.”

Figure: Early Tigra basically had 1.4L version, and it was not until 1998 that it began to add 1.6L version.

Picture: The exclusive version in Germany is called Tigra Sports, which is actually a 1.6L version with an air kit added.

Picture: This is a pickup version called Fun launched by Irmscher, a professional modification company of Opel. A total of 25 units were produced, which is very special.

004 3, three years after the first generation Tigra A was delisted, Opel re-activated the Tigra nameplate, and the frame chassis is still in use with Corsa. C is built with the same GM4300 platform, but the second-generation Tigra has also added a suffix Twintop after the name. If fans familiar with the car naming rules see this name, they are probably a carriage. Yes, the first-generation Tigra mainly features a hard top three-door sports car with a Coupe-shaped hard top three-door sports car, and the second-generation transformed opponent has become an electric folding hard top bulge, because it is from the French body production company Heuliez, and the 206CC is also the carriage they built for Peugeot from 2000 to 2007. The company was founded in 1920. The first assembled model was Peugeot Type 177, including the later Peugeot 205 T16 road version and Renault 5 Turbo and others are all from this company. Peugeot 206CC is the largest production model in their history, producing a total of 350,000 vehicles. Tigra Twintop is the last mass-produced car undertaken by the company. It launched its carousel roof processing business in 2010, and was later acquired by Franco-German Group and closed in 2014.

Picture: Tigra B's way of opening is very special. It cleverly puts the hard top into a vertical space. After opening, the space has 250 liters, 440 liters after opening, and a special space of 70 liters, so the total volume after opening is 500 liters, which is rare among the models of the same level.

Picture: In the caravan, although Tigra is just a B-class car, it is very capable of installing. After closing the caravan, it can hold so many of it, and many opponents can't stand it.

Figure: The process of opening the bodice can be completed in only 18 seconds. The picture shows the 1.8L version, the roof is painted in two colors, while the ordinary 1.4L version is the same color.

The second-generation Tigra B has three engines to choose from. The earliest one to be launched was still the 1.4L version, using the Z14XEP engine, with a maximum horsepower of 90 horsepower and a maximum torque of 125 Nm, and the power parameters are the same as the X14XE; the 1.8L displacement uses the X18XE engine, with a maximum horsepower of 125 horsepower and a maximum torque of 165 Nm. This engine is also from the Corsa GSi model. The last power system is the 1.3-liter CDTi diesel engine borrowed from Fiat, with a maximum horsepower of 70 horsepower and a maximum torque of 170 Nm.

Figure: The 1.4L version is the main model in the market, the price is not high, less than 20,000 euros is actually quite reasonable.

Figure: The price of the 1.8L version is above 20,000 euros.

Although Opel has made innovations for the second-generation Tigra, because in the 1990s, the sales of carousels accounted for less than 3% in the German market, by 2004, it had accounted for nearly 5%. The demand for carousels in Europe exceeded 400,000. This figure is unimaginable even for the sales of more than 20 million vehicles in China today, whether it is ideology, usage habits, or even deeper level of automobile culture precipitation. Opel believes that the market situation will be very good, and Heuliez can also achieve a production capacity of 250 vehicles per day, but the market situation is not optimistic. Even the 1.4L version is priced at less than 20,000 euros, and the daily production is only 50 vehicles. Because the Heuliez factory was unsustainable in 2009, Tigra could only stop production with the final output of 90,874 vehicles.

Figure: The illusion version launched in 2008 is very special with a black body with a red ceiling.

Picture: And this red color is not spray paint, it is wrapped in a layer of canvas material similar to a soft bulb. From a distance, I really think it is a soft top open tent.

Tigra has been discontinued for more than 10 years. In the past ten years, Opel has switched from General Motors to PSA, and the new generation of Corsa will continue to work hard with the new CMP frame platform. Will Tigra, a personalized car derived from Corsa, come back to the world? Or how many people will really understand such a sports car now?