When General Motors Co.'s board halted the sale of the company's European car business last week, no one was happier than the automaker's chief engineer.

Engineers with the Ruesselsheim, Germany-based Opel have designed the basics of GM's new compact and midsize cars that are sold across the globe, and they do much of the company's research on safety and electric vehicles. So it would be difficult to separate them from engineering operations in the U.S. and elsewhere, said Mark Reuss, vice president of global vehicle engineering.

"It would have made everything a lot harder," said Reuss, who was picked to head GM's engineering shortly after the company emerged from bankruptcy protection last summer.

GM wouldn't have lost all of its designs and technology if it had sold Opel, which it has owned since 1929. "But I'm really happy that we're keeping it," Reuss said.

The reason GM even considered selling Opel was because it was it headed toward bankruptcy protection when it agreed to the deal in May. Since then, it's cut its debt, scaled back operations and seen car sales stabilize.

Under the deal, 55 percent of Opel would have gone to a consortium of car parts maker Magna International Inc. and Russian lender Sberbank. The sale was ditched partly over fears that GM would lose control of Opel-designed technology, which includes next-generation designs for some key cars to be sold in the U.S.

GM would have kept 35 percent of Opel and the British Vauxhall unit, but without controlling interest, Opel resources could have been diverted away from GM's global cars to projects that were priorities of the new owners, Reuss said.

"You're competing for resources at that point, because you've only got a 35 percent share," he said. Continued...