Opel Adam: stylish city car not for Oz

The Adam, which will wear Vauxhall badges (as pictured) in the UK, goes on sale in Europe in January, but appears a long shot for our market at this stage.

Opel Australia’s Melanie Kerin confirmed the local brand has “no plans in the immediate future to introduce the Adam” to the line-up, and is currently focused on the launch of the Corsa, Astra, Astra GTC and Insignia in September.

The three-door, four-seat Opel Adam will go head to head with compact city cars like the Volkswagen Up!, Skoda Citigo and Fiat 500, although Opel says it bucks the segment’s trend of retro-based designs with fresh and distinctive styling.

Opel says the Adam will offer an unrivalled level of personalisation in the city-car class, with more than one million potential combinations of the three distinct trim levels (Jam, Glam and Slam), paint and roof colours, alloy wheels, and interior colours, materials and equipment. The cabin can even be optioned with a ‘starlight’ roof trim with LEDs embedded in the headliner.

The infotainment system has been designed to integrate with Android and Apple iOS software, allowing audio, GPS navigation and other internet-based applications to be streamed and displayed on the seven-inch full-colour touch screen.

Opel’s Advanced Park Assist II system – which automatically steers the car into parking spaces – is optional, working in tandem with blind spot assist, while six airbags (dual front, side and curtains) are fitted as standard.

Three four-cylinder petrol engines will be available from launch: a 51kW 1.2-litre, and two tunes of a 1.4-litre producing 64kW and 74kW. All three are mated to a five-speed manual transmission and will be available with stop-start engine technology to improve fuel efficiency.

Further down the track, the Adam will become the first model in the Opel/Vauxhall line-up to feature a new direct injection, turbocharged petrol engine – believed to be a three-cylinder unit – as well as an all-new six-speed transmission.

The Opel Adam will make its public debut at the 2012 Paris motor show in September.