GM may sell Opel Adam minicar in U.S. as a Buick

September 10, 2013 - 11:04 am ET
FRANKFURT -- General Motors is considering bringing the Opel Adam minicar to
the United States, likely wearing a Buick badge, Opel Chairman Karl-Thomas
Neumann said today.

"We are looking at it," Neumann told reporters on the sidelines of the auto
show here. "Nothing is decided. But it's an example of some of the Opel
product being used elsewhere in the world."

The possibility illustrates GM's new efforts to better sync up Opel and
Buick so that similar vehicles can be sold wearing different badges in
Europe, the United States and China.

GM already does that with several vehicles, such as the Buick Encore small
crossover in the United States and China and the Opel Mokka in Europe. But
GM executives say they are redoubling their efforts to co-develop Buicks and
Opels to better use their engineering and design resources.

The small, sporty Adam is aimed at fans of the Fiat 500 and BMW's Mini
brand. The 11,500 euro (about $15,250) hatchback has been praised by
Europe's enthusiast magazines.

A U.S. debut for the Adam would be at least a few years away if GM decides
to offer the minicar in the United States. GM Vice Chairman Steve Girsky,
also speaking to reporters at the show, said the current Adam, launched
across Europe early this year, "cannot be federalized" to meet U.S. safety
and other regulatory requirements. That suggests that any U.S. entry would
wait until at least the first re-engineering of the Adam.

"We have to work on the car," Neumann said. "That's one of the issues that
we have to look at."

GM CEO Dan Akerson said in June that he thought the Adam would be a good fit
for Buick's U.S. lineup. He said that he wished GM had designed the Adam and
the Opel Cascada mid-sized convertible to clear U.S. regulatory hurdles back
around 2009, before GM's bankruptcy, so that the company could have brought
those vehicles to the United States with minimal cost.

Neumann said GM's goal is to intertwine Opel and Buick product development
more closely.

"Maybe that can be done better in the future, if we design the product so
that it would fit into other markets," he said. "That's exactly what we're
aiming at."