Vauxhall Launch the Adam And Raided The Silly Name Box To Do It
The Citroen DS3 is a stunning little car and has picked up from where previous fashion icon “and now estate agents favourite” the Mini left off. Its OK for a car to be popular and it can still be cool, but in the case of Mini, the only way you’re not going to see yourself coming the other way on every street is to buy one of those ugly new models where the car has basically been messed around with to offer a bigger Mini model range, from what’s basically the same car. That would be fine I guess if most of them didn’t look so awful, but be honest, they do.
So, seeing the market for quirky fashionable cars exists in a time when austerity has hit a good part of the normal car market, Vauxhall have decided to enter the fray and to be fair on first impressions, they aren’t far off hitting the spot, but oh, the names, why the names?
So what’s Vauxhalls new car “I hear you say”, well it’s the “Adam” yep, strange name for starters and Adam would be a strange name for a dog, let alone a car. According to myth, Adam is the first human, he’s Genesis (and nothing to do with Phil Collins) but apparently, Adam can also refer to the general creation of mankind “so nothing pretentious there then Vauxhall”.
We are going to do a full test on Adam when he comes to visit us, but meantime, let’s just give you a little flavour of what you have to look forward to.
Like the Citroen DS3, the Adam (I can’t say that without laughing) is a 3dr hatch, with a floating roof, which for the swish ones of us, is a design feature. It is to be fair, instantly quite pleasing to look at and I guess has a slight flavour of the Audi A1 about it, although that might just be the use of two tone colours, but never the less, a pretty enough thing.
Where it begins to get silly is before you even leave the Vauxhall brochure. The Adam comes in three different models and OK, I know you can’t contain yourself, but there is no basic model here, or top model (although we all know there is), there are just 3 styles to suit everyone. First is the “Adam Jam” which Vauxhall say is fashionable and colourful, next comes the “Adam Glam” which is apparently, elegant & sophisticated and lastly, the “Adam Slam” which is the racy sporty version.
Vauxhall say that these 3 versions and if you are what Vauxhall calls an open minded individual, wanting to defy convention with a car that’s distinctive and striking, well your cups going to overflow as Vauxhall says there are almost unlimited visual combinations of colour and specification options that can enable your Adam to look unlike anyone else’s, so you can effectively, build your own car (you really can get some weird stuff on this car, such as a the cars “starlight” headlining which can be festooned with LED lights).
As this is only a preview and we only really wrote it so that we could take the Mickey out of the stupid names, let’s cut to the chase and see how silly Vauxhall are.
Colours are where the daftness really gets going. Ready?
What about “White My Fire” or “I’ll Be Black” or “James Blonde” or “Purple Fiction” or “Pump Up The Blue” or “Sweet Greens” or “Papa Don’t Peach” or “Red’n’Roll” or “Buzz Lightgreen” or “Saturday White Fever” or “The Greyfather” or “A Star is Brown”, well these are just some of the silly colour options and mixing different bits can even get you more options, picking “Twisted Red or Twisted Brown or Twisted Green packs” or a “Men in Brown” roof can make your Adam look pretty good, but sound totally stupid.
Vauxhall’s ADAM will be offered with a choice of three efficient ecoFLEX four-cylinder petrol engines from launch: a 1.2-litre 70PS, plus two 1.4-litre engines with either 87PS or 100PS. All will be available with optional Start/Stop technology and will be mated to a five-speed manual gearbox.
Pricing starts at £11,255 for the 1.2 Jam, up to £14,295 for the 1.4 Slam and of course, the options list is endless, although most options are good value.
So Mr. Vauxhall, pretty little car of that there’s no doubt and of course, we all wish you well with it and look forward to testing it, but please tell us, what were you on when you came up with these stupid names?
