The Opel Adam (named for the company’s founder, in case you were wondering) is a very agreeable little car. It has the right blend of cutesy and pugnacious looks, offers decent specification levels and is keenly priced in the boutique-y hatch segment.

Until now there has been no contender to fight the likes of the Citroen DS3 and Fiat 500 in the higher echelon power stakes, which is exactly why Opel SA has launched the Adam S.

What is it?

This newcomer is the range-topper and fittingly offers the highest spec, but it's also priced accordingly. For your extra dosh you get three bespoke colour combinations: Saturday White Fever with red roof, Shiny Rock with red roof, Red ’n Roll with grey roof.

A front spoiler, rear wing and 18-inch alloy wheels announce to onlookers that this is the tar-burning member of the family. Opel claims that the rear wing is good for 10 kg of added downforce.

Inside there are Recaro sports seats, a red leather pack – steering wheel, gearknob, handbrake lever, and several S-specific styling cues; among these the S logo instrumentation, S logo floor mats and S logo décor panels.

Best of all

To top off all that extra kit Opel has thrown a 1,4-litre, turbocharged engine, similar to that found in bigger brother Corsa, under the hood. This unit develops 110 kW and 220 N.m of torque, all of which is delivered to the front axle via a six-speed manual gearbox.

Coupled with a mass of 1 178 kg Opel claims that the Adam S is good for a 8,5 second time in the benchmark sprint stakes and it will top out at 210 km/h.

How does it go?

Opel took a big gamble and allowed several members of the SA motor writers' fraternity loose on Aldo Scribante in its brand-new baby.

Within the confines of Port Elizabeth’s tight and technical track the little car acquitted itself well. It had enough power to zip down the straights and the right level of grip from those 235 mm wide tyres not to be overwhelmed by the torque output. Most impressively the 308 mm ventilated front discs held up to repeated abuse .

Unfortunately there was no road driving aspect on the launch, so I can’t really comment on the ride quality out on public roads. I suspect that with 35 aspect ratio rubber and a torsion beam rear suspension layout that the ride quality may be less than ideal, but we’ll wait to test one before making that final call.

Verdict

Like its direct rivals the Adam S occupies an irrational little niche in the motoring peck order. It’s not quite a value for money proposition and not a really high performance model. At R30 000 dearer a Ford Fiesta ST, a car that we rate highly, is much better value for money and a better performer to boot.

At R330 000 some may question Opel’s pricing strategy, but these types of cars such as the Fiat 500 Abarth and Citroen DS3 are emotional rather than sensible purchases. With only 50 examples on the cards for the foreseeable future Opel will probably move all the SA-bound Adam S models on exclusivity alone.

Original article from Car