The Diesel-Powered Mid-Engine Sports Car That Weighed Nearly Half A Miata

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“Diesel” and “sports car” are not words very frequently found in the same sentence. As diesel rapidly disappears from the automotive market altogether, being confined almost exclusively to trucks and commercial vehicles, most car enthusiasts are not inclined to associate it with high-performance driving. Around two decades ago, however, things might have gone differently.

Before the Dieselgate scandal, and before the rapid rise of electric and hybrid cars, diesel-powered cars were seen as the symbol of efficient, eco-friendly mobility for the future. Automakers were exploring the possibilities diesel offered in all avenues, including, yes, small sports cars. One of these automakers was Opel, which created a diesel-powered variant of its Lotus Elise-based Speedster; the one-off concept car was called the Opel Eco Speedster, and managed to set an astonishing number of records before being consigned to the archives of automotive history.

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2011 Lotus Elise

Engine 1.8L Inline-4 Gas

Horsepower 190 hp

Fuel Economy 21/27 MPG

This feature focuses on the Opel Eco Speedster and its wider history in the context of diesel's evolution in the automotive world. All information has been obtained from reputable sources.

The Opel Eco Speedster

Opel Eco Speedster Adam Opel AG 2

The Opel Eco Speedster was a concept car first unveiled in 2002 at the Paris Motor Show, around a year after its parent model, the Speedster, went into production. The Eco Speedster differed from the Speedster in many areas: design, door layout, and most importantly, powertrain. The overall look of the car had a sleeker look and feel, with fewer air vents and other interruptions to the smooth, dynamic lines. This greatly improved the car’s aerodynamics (the Eco Speedster had a drag coefficient of just 0.20). The bodywork was made of carbon fiber, and gullwing doors, which had not been present in the original Speedster, were also added.

The big change, of course, comes on the engine front, hence the “Eco” moniker. A 1.3-liter four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine powers the Eco Speedster, producing 110 hp (all sent to the rear wheels). The Eco Speedster carries forward the legacy of a much earlier Opel from 1972, which had also been propelled by diesel power: a modified Opel GT, powered by a 2.1-liter turbo-diesel engine that produced 95 hp. This car set multiple world records for diesel engines in its time; later that year, Opel released its first diesel-powered passenger car, the Rekord 2.1 D.

The Eco Speedster was also incredibly lightweight, weighing in at around 1,350 pounds. For comparison, the equivalent Mazda Miata (the second-generation NB model) weighed 2,348 pounds. This low weight figure contributed to the Eco Speedster’s performance and efficiency, and helped it break several records during a test run at Opel’s proving grounds.

Head To Head: Opel Eco Speedster Vs. Second-Generation (NB) Mazda Miata

Model	Eco Speedster	NB Mazda Miata
Engine	1.3L turbocharged four-cylinder diesel	1.8L inline-four (gas)
Horsepower	110 hp	138 hp
0-60	8.8 seconds	8.0 seconds
Top Speed	150 mph	127 mph
Weight	1,350 lb	2,348 lb

The Eco Speedster's Legendary Test Run

Opel ECO Speedster LSDSL WC

Eager to put the Eco Speedster through its paces and see what this unique creation was capable of, Opel arranged for a test run at its testing facility in Dudenhofen, Germany. The intent was for the Eco Speedster to be driven continuously around the circular track for 24 hours; this objective was nearly achieved, were it not for electrical issues popping up and cutting track time down.

Opel was making an attempt at breaking every possible record for a car powered by a turbo-diesel engine, in every different aspect of performance, from endurance to speed and fuel efficiency. The Eco Speedster delivered on all fronts, breaking 17 records in a single day during its test run.

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The Eco Speedster's Origins: The Opel Speedster

2 Opel Speedster

The Eco Speedster was derived from an Opel production model called the Speedster, based on the Lotus Elise and sold in the UK market as the Vauxhall VX220. The Speedster came about because of an interesting series of circumstances, involving safety regulations and a deal between GM and Lotus. In the late 1990s, Lotus was facing the prospect of having to redesign the Elise due to European crash safety regulations changing and getting more strict. Financial difficulties meant that Lotus struggled to accomplish this on its own; the company reached out to General Motors, proposing a mutually advantageous deal.

Finally, the deal was struck: GM would help Lotus with the financial resources needed for the design and production of the new Elise, while Lotus would provide its expertise to help develop Opel’s new sports car, the Speedster. A modified version of the second-generation Elise’s chassis ended up being used; of course, some modifications were made, such as lower door sills and a longer wheelbase.

2000-2005 Opel Speedster Exterior

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Although its design was influenced by the Elise, Opel made sure to give the Speedster a unique look that departed visually from the Elise. Instead of the smooth, sleek lines that characterize the Lotus, the Speedster has a more aggressive edge, with sharper angles. Vertical air vents are prominent on the side of the car; the round headlights seen on the Elise are gone, replaced by more angular ones. As a result, the Speedster has a unique visual character, quite unlike that of any other car on the road.

The Speedster was powered by an engine sourced from another Opel model, the Astra: a 2.2-liter Ecotec inline-four, producing 145 hp and paired with a 5-speed manual transmission built by Italian company Getrag. Only a few years later, Opel’s customers made it known to the company that there was demand for a more powerful version of the Speedster. The reworked Speedster arrived in 2003, this time powered by a turbocharged 2.0-liter version of the Ecotec engine.

The Death Of Diesel: Why The Eco Speedster Failed

1998 VW Golf TDI Cabriolet Diesel I4 Engine

The record-breaking Eco Speedster was an impressive feat of engineering, but due to its very nature, would neither make it to production nor be widely remembered in the context of the wider automotive industry. The Eco Speedster was fundamentally guided by the concept of diesel being clean and green: the fuel of the future. This may sound hard to believe now, as the industry has evolved and public opinion of diesels has radically shifted. This came about as the result of several changes in the automotive world, most notably the Dieselgate scandal.

Dieselgate (sometimes referred to as “Emissionsgate” in the early days) was one of the largest scandals in automotive history. The crux of the matter was that Volkswagen secretly installed software on their diesel vehicles that detected when an emissions test was taking place. When this happened, the car temporarily ran its engine in a more efficient way to cheat the test and display lower emissions levels. This type of software was known as a “defeat device”. After the test had ended, the vehicle went back to operating in its default mode, which produced far higher levels of pollution.

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In 2015, the automotive world became aware of the presence of this software, and a scandal exploded. Millions of vehicles were involved; around 600,000 diesel vehicles were estimated to be fitted with this software in the US alone. While several different brands were implicated (such as Bosch), Volkswagen was the biggest culprit, and became the face of the scandal in the public eye. The popularity of diesel as a whole dropped rapidly in the aftermath of the scandal, and automakers around the world quickly began to move away from it over the following years.

Around the same time the Dieselgate scandal was putting the final nail in the coffin, an alternate form of green propulsion was beginning to emerge into the mainstream: electric and hybrid vehicles. Up until the early 2010s, EVs and hybrids only made up a very small portion of the market, but during this decade they really started to take off. In a matter of months, the combination of these two factors had made sure that electrification had completely replaced diesel as the eco-friendly way of getting around. The Eco Speedster remains a fascinating study into the ideas that drove the automotive industry at a certain point in time, and how quickly they can be altered or replaced.