The Opel Adam is pictured during testing at an undisclosed location in Germany. — Picture courtesy of OpelBERLIN, May 13 — Opel will call its new city car the “Adam”, it confirmed this week.

Releasing a comic strip that reveals the vehicle’s name, Opel ended months of speculation over the name of its new small vehicle, codenamed “Junior” thanks to its petite size.

With three doors, four seats and a length of just 3.7m, the Adam will rival the likes of the popular Volkswagen Up! and Fiat 500 in the rapidly-growing urban car market and will be offered with small engines ranging from 1.0L–1.4L.

It will be officially unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in September, Opel also confirmed this week.

Adam is something of an unconventional name for a vehicle — although the firm said the choice wasn’t a reference to a particular person, few observers have failed to spot the coincidence that the brand was founded by an Adam Opel in the 19th century.

It’s the second car to have been given a human name recently — Renault released its Zoe model last year, only to find itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit from the parents of two children called Zoe Renault, who argued their offspring could be mocked.

Neither though, look set to receive as much maligning as the unfortunately-named Ford Probe or the Mazda Scrum Wagon, which earned the top two places in Jalopnik’s worst car names of all times.

Other notable entries included the Rural Nanny and Detroit Fish from Chinese brands Geely and Tang Hua respectively, the Isuzu Mysterious Utility Wizard and the Studebaker Dictator, which launched in the 1920s and must surely be the most tragically prophetic name ever conceived for a car. — AFP/Relaxnews