Opel Adam Rocks

The Opel Adam Rocks, Is probably Opels funkiest little cross over. Though cross overs would mean that you should be able to take it onto the path less travelled and to be honest, I wouldn’t dare to damage those beautiful 18” alloys.

Now our test car came in a mustardy yellow and combined with the two-tone look it had to go on, pulled a lot of heads, everywhere. It made other Adam’s occasionally seen on the commute, look pretty bland and almost boring.

Now the Adam Rocks is powered by Opels little Ecoflex engine and by little, it’s really a 3 cylinder 1.0l making 85kw and 170nm. It’s mated to a 6-speed close ratio gearbox, so naturally out of the blocks the Adams brisk acceleration is pretty impressive. We managed 0-100kph times in the mid 9s bracket, not a rocket ship by any means, but pretty nippy if you get what I’m trying to say here.

The interior setup is pure Opel. It’s fitted with their “Intellilink” system and that features the regular Bluetooth telephony, USB and the average yadadada. You have a navigation system available through a 3^rd party app called Bringo. This needs to be installed on you cell phone and your  phone needs to be connected to the car via USB. Probably not the most practical choice, but hey… it will do the job. The audio system is a little different in the Rocks, because it has been fitted with a full on factory Infinity system. For those of you who know your audio brands, know that this is right up there with Bose etc. If you like your audio loud and clear, the Adam Rocks, will certainly not disappoint, especially not since it has a little “doof doof” subwoofer stored neatly under the rear boot tray. One thing lacking though, is a CD player… maybe its Opels way to tell you to come to the 21^st century. Other conveniences like climate control are standard, as well as Opels “City Assist” which just makes the steering a little lighter in tighter situations. The Rocks also has a self park, interesting in theory, but can become a little frustrating when you are needing to hit that gap at the supermarket before the next guy.

Now this Adam Rocks is also fitted with a canvas roof and its the only Adam that has one. It’s pretty simple to operate and I think it’s actually very cool. There are a few drawbacks though and that is, that it’s a little bit noisier than a conventional sunroof at higher speeds. It’s just something to keep in mind, though.

The interior space, while being pretty tight in the back, is generous for the driver and passenger. The leather seats offer good support and are very comfortable. The boot is big enough to fit a couple of tog bags and some groceries, but don’t expect to load much of anything else in there. The rear seats do fold flat for that situation where you need a tad more space.

The fuel economy on this little Adam is where small niche cars like this make sense. Although it’s been claimed at 4.3l a 100km, I saw around the 5.5l mark and my tank range was a good 500ish off the relatively minute 35l tank.

The car retails at R287 100 and comes standard with Opels 5 year 120 000km warranty. For more info check out the Adam page @ http://www.opel.co.za/vehicles/opel-range/cars/adam-rocks/index.html