By: Dave Abrahams
Cape Town - If there is one thing that can be said for being a late arrival in a particular market segment, it's that you're able to sum up the best of what your competition is doing, and avoid their mistakes.
And that's precisely what Opel has done with its Adam, a 'premium' (read expensive) city car that will go up against the Mini, the Fiat 500, and a car that carefully wasn't mentioned at all during the Adam's South African launch this week, the Citroen DS3.
For a company that four years ago was on the verge of implosion, it's an impressive effort; mind you, Opel has never had any problems building solid cars, it just seemed to lack direction in recent decades.
Which is what it is trying to recapture with the Adam, and its companion pieces the Karl hatch and Mokka SUV, hyped up as the first salvo in a 'new product onslaught' (Opel's words, not ours) that will include 27 new models and 17 new engines by 2018.
Collectively it calls them the new Germans, billing itself as the emotional German carmaker - and the launch venue certainly reflected that; it was on the seventh floor of a glass and steel office building in the Cape Town CBD and yes, Cyril, three cars had been hoisted up there for the occasion.
Expensive? Undoubtedly. Irrational? Arguably. Emotional? Attention-getting? Definitely.
Because that's what the Adam (named after the entrepreneur who founded the company in 1862 and made a fortune out of sewing machines, bicycles and, from 1899, the newfangled horseless carriages) is all about.
It's chunky, distinctive and memorably different, very much its own car rather than a recreation of a 1960s classic, with an upmarket, quite sporty interior (Morrocana leather-like upholstery with contrast stitching in a huge range of funky colours including deep purple) and sporty round instruments in a neatly contoured, soft-touch dashboard.
It's available in a wide range of colours, with or without a contrasting black or white (or glass) roof. A surprising number of interior and exterior trim elements can also be removed and replaced without major surgery, so you can order your Adam in your own personal combination of colours and rim style - and even change your mind later.
Opel's media release says it will range from R200 000 to R250 000 when it goes on sale in January 2015, but at the launch presentation we were told prices should be in the R185 000 - R230 000 band. It would seem GMSA has been sharpening its Opel pencil to the benefit of its customers.
NUTS AND BOLTS
The Adam will be available at launch in three variants; the base model has a proven 1.4-litre EcoTec petrol four rated at 74kW and 130Nm and a five-speed manual gearbox. GMSA quotes 0-100 in 11.5sec, 185km/h flat out and 5.3 litres per 100km; I didn't get a chance to drive one at the launch but wouldn't expect any surprises if I did.
The Adam Jam (sporty OPC-Line trim options) and Adam Glam (seriously funky, climate control, standard glass roof or Rolls-Royce style starlight headliner, gizmotronics for Africa) come with an all-new, three cylinder, direct-injection, high-compression turbopetrol three for which Russelsheim quotes 85kW from 5000-6000 revs and 170Nm from 1800-4500rpm.
Driving through a six-speed manual 'box (there's no slushbox on the radar yet), they say it'll motivate the Adam to 100km/h in less than 10 seconds and on to 196km/h, at a combined-cycle rating of 5.1 litres per 100km.
WELL-CONNECTED
Settling into the Adam's unexpectedly deeply-bolstered seats presents a tight but not claustrophobic four-seater cabin, although rear legroom is as limited as you'd expect in a car of this diminutive size.
Everything feels good, however, and the bells and whistles are conveniently to hand, especially the seven-inch centre-stack touchscreen that announces the arrival of Opel's Bringgo navigation system in South Africa.
This is actually an app that you download on to your smartphone and pair up to your Adam - by Bluetooth from an Android handset and by cable from an iPhone - to give the car's infotainment system full access to your phone's playlists, texts, emails and apps, including of course the Bringgo lady, whose dulcet tones only become annoying when she reminds you for the umpteenth time that you have exceeded the speed limit.
Out on the road, the Adam impresses with an overall feeling of rocklike solidity; the suspension is firm without being harsh, the steering direct without sports-car weightiness (and there's a 'City' button, borrowed from Fiat, that makes it absolutely effortless for car-park capers) while the brakes are razor-sharp and body roll practically non-existent.
Without trying to make believe it's a tin-top kart, the Adam goes exactly where you aim it, and holds its line like a top defence lawyer - but it's the EcoFlex engine that is the car's crowning glory.
ALWAYS WILLING TO PLAY
Cruising along at (slightly over) the legal limit on some of the Cape's more picturesque drives it's astonishingly silent - so much so that it throws undue emphasis on the slightly noisy issue tyres - but point it at the twisties, put foot and it sings a sweet three-cylinder song, distinctive but seldom intrusive.
There's serious, apparently lag-free grunt available from about two-eight all the way to six-two, but the little triple delivers entirely without fuss, always willing to play and never sounding like it's working hard.
Yes, it's a cliché, but this feisty little mill really does punch above its weight. Whether you're zooming over a mountain pass or bouncing from robot to robot in the Stoplight Grand Prix, it's a whole lotta fun, and a lot less intense than the pocket rockets so beloved of the GTI Joes who believe that life starts at 220 (kilowatts, that is).
I didn't want to buy into the hype when I first saw the Adam's distinctly quirky styling, but the new Germans really have stirred some emotion into their city-car pot, and a lot of the seasoning is provided by that turbotriple. In simple terms, it does exactly what it says on the tin.