Geneva show: Vauxhall GTC

Dominating the Vauxhall - sorry, Opel - stand and putting in an early bid for the hotly contested title of 'coolest coupe in show' is this: the Vauxhall GTC (GranTurismo Concept).

Vauxhall's official line is that this two-door sport coupe is a design exercise indicating its future styling direction. 

Sadly the firm says it has no plans to produce a coupe in the near future, so it seems much more likely that the GTC is a stylistic forerunner for the next-generation Vectra, due to appear sometime in the middle of 2008.

It might sound a bit far-fetched, but Vauxhall has a history of producing coupe concept versions of non-coupe production cars - the new Antara was initially shown off in coupe guise before morphing into a production soft-roader.

So stick another couple of doors on the GTC, raise the roofline, and cut back on the bling and you might just be looking at the next Vectra. 

The GTC is powered by a turbocharged 2.8-litre V6 developing 300bhp - an engine that General Motors is unveiling in Geneva and which Vauxhall says could find its way into a production car very soon.

It puts the power to the road through an adaptive four-wheel-drive system that electronically adjusts the power distribution between front and rear wheels for maximum grip.

Once again, Vauxhall has hinted that it won't be long before this technology makes an appearance in its current line-up.

However, we don't reckon you'll see many Vauxhalls on the road with matt-grey paint, 20-inch machine-polished alloys and LED night-lights for a while to come.