No Opel Adam for Australia

While the Mokka mini-SUV and Cascada cabriolet seem set to expand the Opel lineup in Australia, the funky Adam mini looks increasingly likely to be ruled out.

The problem for Adam, which picked up 20,000 orders in its first month on-sale in Europe in January, is the complexity of its potential individualisation and lack of automatic transmission.

“If it’s a manual transmission (only) so we’d have to limit the variability and pricing is going to have to be pretty keen because in that space Volkswagen has come with an Up that is very keenly priced,” Opel Australia MD Bill Mott told motoring.com.au.

“We’d have to work on our maths very closely to make it work on that space.”

Mr Mott described himself as a “doubting Thomas” when it came to the Adam, but admitted that there were still plans to crunch the numbers and study the business case.

“It’s the lack of an automatic transmission that makes me most sceptical about it,” he admitted.

Mr Mott said he would watch the sales performance of the Up, which Volkswagen Group Australia has elected to sell without the optional automated-manual transmission “with interest.”

However, even if he was swayed to become a believer and a business case was firmed up, Mr Mott said there was no chance of Adam joining the local lineup in 2013.

It is claimed the three-door four-seat mini can be had in more than one million trim and spec permutations, which makes the task of establishing a local-ised offering – with a reduced range or not – another impediment.

“You can personalise that car to the enth degree and what that means for us is that the car is built in Eisenach Germany, you give the order two months in advance, it takes  couple of months to get here so it’s a long delay.

“It’s not a vehicle you could ever really sell from stock… that makes it a difficult proposition.”

Opel will show off a cross-over version of the Adam dubbed Rocks at the Geneva auto show in March. A Cabrio version, which shapes up as competitor for the Fiat 500C is also said to be under development and set for release in 2014.