Opel Reintroduces GSe Sub-Brand Now With An Electric Twist

This badge has designated some of the most well known performance Opel models, and it will stick around in the electric era.

Opel GSE Comeback

Andrei Nedelea

By: Andrei Nedelea

Sep 14, 2022 at 10:29am ET

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Opel GSE used to designate some of the hottest offerings from this historic German automaker (now owned by Stellantis), but this performance badge will not be going away as the company moves into the electric age. They will be making one change to the badge, which is meant to reflect this shift to electric vehicles and the fact that Opel is wholeheartedly on board.

Now whereas before the performance badge was comprised of three capital letters, GSE, which are an abbreviation of the German words “Grand Sport Einspritzung,” with the last word meaning “Injection” (as used for the Monza GSE or the Commodore GS/E). Now they are repurposing the last letter to stand for electric (and it’s also no longer a capital letter).

Gallery: Opel GSe-Comeback

Opel GSE Comeback

According to Opel CEO Florian Huettl,

I am very happy to announce the return of GSe as our top of the range, sporty sub-brand in the immediate future. We have once again taken inspiration from our rich heritage – as we did for our new critically acclaimed bold and pure design – and given it a modern twist. In future, the label GSe will not only signify dynamic, fun to drive cars but also stand for ‘Grand Sport electric’, in full alignment with our ambitious plans to become a fully electric brand.

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Last year Opel revealed the Manta GSe, essentially an EV conversion and restomod project based on the classic 1970s Manta coupe, which was launched to celebrate the model’s 50th anniversary. It was a one-off and even featured a manual gearbox, but it signaled the manufacturer’s desire to create high-performance electric vehicles.

One rumor also suggests that Opel is preparing an electric hot hatch based on the soon-to-be-revealed fully-electric Astra-e (which in standard form will have identical specs to the Peugeot e-308 revealed not long ago). The EMP2 V3 platform (also known as STLA Medium) that it is built on does support dual-motor all-wheel drive, and if they used two of the standard car’s motors, the resulting EV would have just over 300 horsepower, which seems like a nice round number for such a vehicle.