A fresh report out of Europe suggests the next-generation Astra range will include a flagship OPC-badged hot hatch boasting all-wheel drive.
According to Autocar, the new Astra is scheduled to be revealed in 2021, with sales in initial markets slated to start early the following year. The German firm has suggested buyers can expect the hatchback to adopt quite a radical design.
“What [the new Mokka] is to this segment, that car [the Astra] will be to its segment,” Opel design chief Mark Adams told Autocar. “The boldness and the key elements [of the Mokka] will be coming through. We’re not going to take the same design and morph it into a different shape. We’ll take the same ingredients and develop it around them.”
As the publication points out, the new Astra will ride on the same PSA Group platform as the next-generation Peugeot 308.
So, what about the return of that OPC badge? Well, the report claims a pair of plug-in hybrid derivatives will be included in the next-gen Astra range, with the more powerful of the two reserved for the performance flagship.
Autocar says the new Astra OPC (or Astra VXR in some markets) will offer 221 kW and all-wheel drive, which would see it line up nicely alongside the Volkswagen Golf 8 R.
For the record, this powertrain already exists in Opel’s Grandland X Hybrid4 derivative, where it combines a 147 kW turbocharged 1,6-litre, four-cylinder petrol engine with two electric motors (an 81 kW item up front and an 83 kW at the rear) and a 13,2 kWh lithium-ion battery.
