2013 Adam Sales Helped Opel Increase Market Share in Europe

Rising sales of the Adam city car in 2013 helped Opel and Vauxhall increase their market share in Europe in 2013, despite a declining auto market.

In recent years, Opel has struggled to maintain market share because of a lack of new products and management disruption. The carmaker launched the Adam a year ago hoping to revive sales in Europe, where buyers now prefer smaller cars that are cheaper to buy and run.

Opel said that its European market share (including sister brand Vauxhall) was 5.61 percent in 2013, up from 5.59 percent in 2012, according to preliminary sales data. In Germany, the brand expanding its market share from 6.9 percent to 7 percent.

The introduction of the Opel Adam had an important role in the brand’s increased deliveries last year, according to with Peter Christian Kuespert, Opel's vice president of sales and after-sales. In Germany, Opel sold 21,000 Adam city cars last year, while sales of the Mokka compact crossover reached 20,000 units.

The subcompact segment represented the biggest slice of the market in 2013, totaling about 25 percent of new car registrations last year, according to data from JATO Dynamics. Opel still has to replace the Corsa subcompact, which is one of the oldest products being offered in Europe. Launched in 2006, the Corsa competes with more modern vehicles like the Renault Clio, Ford Fiesta and Peugeot 208. Corsa sales declined 14 percent in 2012.

By Dan Mihalascu

Story References: Reuters

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This is What '90s Singer Bryan Adams Would do to an Opel Adam

Opel tells us that Canadian-born singer/songwriter Bryan Adams whose career certainly peaked way before he had to fly to Kathmandu, Nepal to get kudos, is also a respected photographer, it seems.

Undoubtedly an interesting fact in and of itself, but what’s more eye-catching is that now he’s also entered a creative partnership with them that has thus far resulted in this customized Adam city car, shot artistically from multiple angles.

The lovely set of photos can be found after the virtual jump, which you can cross by scrolling down. Once you do, you’ll see that the mini-MINI-DS3 (attempt) proudly wearing camouflage and its country’s colors to reinforce its image, and at one point even has the nice model in suitably skintight clothing stand in front of it and cover most of it up.

Granted, even then, the lively livery shows through...

Mr. Adams went to all the trouble to make the Adam look cool for a calendar that will be on display at an event planned for early next year at the Haus der Kunst museum, located in Munich.

There, it will have a light shone on it for three days between January 23 and 26, by which time, they will have realized that a car won’t sell well in a sustained manner unless it has substance and identity; a big turbo might fix that, though.

No amount of silly marketing glitter will make it fly out of showrooms faster (aside from the aforementioned means of forced induction, of course).

By Andrei Nedelea

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