Vauxhall has announced that its new city car will be called Adam. Weird. And it was announced via the medium of a comic book strip featuring a wolfpack of zany actors. Weird.Actually, the company has so far used two comics and a video where seven words would have done: “this new car will be called Adam.”
According to a report in Autocar, management and unions are coming up with ideas to make Ellesmere Port more competitive. Unions are said to be prepared to offer more flexible working practices and complex shift patterns to make the plant lower-cost. However, it is hard to believe there is a lot of slack in the system now. Ellesmere Port is already probably the most productive plant General Motors has in Western Europe, so its scope to pull further ahead of other Vauxhall/Opel factories may be limited.
We think that Nissan and Vauxhall should be worried, as the new B-MAX, which was previewed at Ford’s headquarters in Essex yesterday, is designed to revolutionise the B-segment and sure to steal sales from the Note and Meriva. The new compact mini MPV, which is based on a stretched Fiesta chassis, will be on sale in September with prices starting at £12,995.
Key selling features of the B-MAX include the most obvious – the lack of a central B post. Instead, the B-post is built into the B-MAX’s doors and stiff steel structure.
