It is called the Vauxhall Adam or, to give its full name, the Adam Rocks Air. The colour it describes as “goldbusters”, but to picture the actual hue, you have to think of some kind of human effluent (bile, say) given a metallic shimmer. In town, it darts and scuttles like a tiny, exotic insect. On longer journeys, I could hardly believe it had only a one-litre engine, so poky was it. It does 0–60 in 9.9 seconds, and everything seems so effortless. The claimed top speed, 121mph, is quite something, though I didn’t come anywhere near to verifying it.
What you notice, as a regular civilian driver, is a sense of ever-readiness. There were times when I couldn’t tell what was cool and what was a gimmick, what was modern and what a cut-corner. The system it uses instead of a satnav – you download BringGo, then plug in your phone and the screen shows on the display – feels a bit second-rate, but it works, and fast. Gunning through Brixton, trying to get to a civil-unrest event before anyone (everyone) had been arrested, I darted in and out of traffic, while the photographer buzzed the folding roof in and out. I lack the poetry in my soul to understand the point of a roof that opens, but he and the children were delighted.
We arrived at our destination (not the children; I rarely take them to civil unrest), I dropped him off and hared off. This is the way to live, I thought; unencumbered, dainty, fast, always leaving someone else in a fix, and disappearing.
Look, it has its downsides: there are only two seatbelts on the back seat. There are only three doors. There is an unconscionable number of airbags (six), and almost no room for any passengers. But if you’re intending to stick to the driver’s seat, you’ll be pleasantly surprised; it’s a dinky but rather tall car, for its range. The windscreen is an expanse, and the steering wheel is large, adjustable and heated (me neither).
Combined economy is 55.4mpg. At 119g/km, the emissions rating felt designed to fall below a threshold, like a house priced for stamp duty: carrying so little weight, with such a lot of refinement to the engine, this could have gone lower. And, ultimately, there are cars in the world only 5% bigger that are 50% more practical (not that I ever would, but God knows where you’d put a dog in this car). Nonetheless, after only a short time, I thought of us as almost-friends.
Vauxhall Adam Rocks Air
Top speed 121mph
Acceleration 0-60 in 9.9 seconds
Combined fuel consumption 119g/km
CO2 emissions 55.4mpg
Eco rating 8/10
Cool rating 7/10
Original Article http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/30/vauxhall-adam-rocks-air-car-review
