Vauxhall hots up the Adam

Adam S uses Vauxhall's 1.4 turbo tuned to 150hp (nobody ask about steering feel)

Vauxhall has done what it promised us earlier this year and produced a hottish version of the Adam city car. The Adam S debuts at the Paris motor show later this week ahead of a showroom appearance in March next year and beefs up what so far has been a lacklustre small car, at least as far as most PHers are concerned.

It uses the brand's familiar iron-block 1.4-litre turbocharged petrol engine but tuned to 150hp, putting it ahead of the 140hp the engine manages in the Astra SRI, for instance. According to Vauxhall, it's good for a top speed of 124mph and a 0-62mph sprint time of 8.5 seconds.

<Insert steering recall gag here> and all that

That makes it look tardy next to the bigger VW Polo BlueGT, which manages 7.8 seconds again using a 1.4-litre turbo rated at 150hp, but it's too early to say whether a quirk of the gearing is to blame rather than a failure on Vauxhall/Opel's part. Maybe so, given we're promised lots of torque without actually being offered a number as yet. There's no official price yet either, but an inside steer from Vauxhall puts it at just under £15,000. That includes 17-inch alloys (18s also on offer), leather seats and Vauxhall's IntelliLink smartphone connection system that migrates apps to the seven-inch touchscreen, including a sat-nav app.

The styling brings a bit of machismo to the Adam via a rear spoiler, a more prominent exhaust pipe, front lip spoiler and extended side sills. Looks good we reckon, but if you didn't much fancy the standard Adam, we don't think this will swing it, style-wise.

The car comes with what Vauxhall calls a 'specially tuned performance chassis', with steering that's claimed to be more direct. The brakes are said to be 'VXR S' spec, whatever that means (we suspect the discs are larger, although no size was given). We're keen to test the claims - if Vauxhll has got it right then this could be a decent little rival to the likes of the Abarth 500.