Now, we all know that Opel was taking a massive risk by launching the new Adam. A rival to the likes of the Fiat 500, Mini and Citroen DS3, it tries to take Opel into a funky premium hatchback market that's a tough nut to crack. Tougher still when you're set to lose $1.5-billion in Europe in 2012 and you need a big hit to drag up both your image and your bottom line.
But it seems to be working.Opel says it currently has a healthy order bank of 20,000 for the new Adam, and that for a car that was only launched to the public in October. Pretty good, and the hope (of both Opel accountants and watching industry analysts) will be that all of those 20,000 orders comes with a healthy profit margin. What makes the Mini and 500 so profitable to their makers is not just the premium level price tag, but the fact that people spend extra on speccing their cars up. Opel claims that the Adam has 61,000 different exterior styling variations, and 82,000 interior ones, so there's plenty of scope for customers to start dipping into a long and lucrative options list.
"Whoever orders an Adam today, can be pretty much certain that he hasn't seen an identical one. Almost every Adam is one of a kind," Thomas Sedran, interim Opel CEO Opel, said in a statement.
To be frank, we all doubted Opel's ability to appeal to the Generation Y, iPhone-loving, hip-kids generation, given that it's generally best known for making solid, but somewhat staid, family saloons, hatches and MPVs. But the initial success of the Adam might just be the first sign that Opel's long-awaited move upmarket could actually be working.
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