General Motors’ European arm has decided that it won’t jump feet-first into the micro-car segment with Smart, and more recently Toyota and Volkswagen. Speaking with Automotive News Europe, GM’s Euro-veep Carl-Peter Forster said that, “These specialized urban vehicles have a limited market.”

True enough, but it’s a market that stands to go through a growth spurt in the coming years, and GM’s decision to opt out of providing a competitive product might be a shortsighted move.
That said, GM already sells the Chevy-branded, Korean-built Matiz abroad, which – to a certain extent – already fills that niche. But with the Toyota iQ expected to sell 80,000 units in Europe in 2009 and VW’s up! coming the following year, the Opel Trixx concept (pictured) that originally debuted in Geneva in ‘04 might look like an appealing product if sales of the iQ and up! go through the roof.

[Source: Automotive News – sub. req'd]