Fail of the century #16: Vauxhall Adam Rocks Air

In the market for a new car, but can’t decide whether you need an SUV, a city car or a convertible? Why choose, when you could have all three in one convenient package, courtesy of the veritable Swiss Army knife that is the Vauxhall Adam Rocks Air?

Well, firstly because, mercifully, you can’t buy a new Adam Rocks Air any more. But even if you’ve recently developed the ability to time-travel back to 2014, we’d still strongly advise not buying a new Adam Rocks Air. (Not least because, seriously, you’ve just mastered time travel. There are more exciting and lucrative things to be done than queuing at your local Vauxhall dealership.)

Because while the Adam Rocks Air (in addition to sounding like the Old Testament version of scissors-paper-stone) promised three cars for the price of one, it in fact offered one not very good car for the price of a lot. Though a cacophony of plastic cladding hinted at volcano-conquering off-road ability, the Rocks Air rode a mere 15mm higher than the regular Adam, with precisely no other concessions to all-terrain motoring.

The Adam Rocks Air’s ‘electric folding canvas roof’, which Vauxhall grandly promised would provide ‘open air fun’, in fact turned out to be ‘a largish sunroof’. And the whole thing cost nearly 15 grand. Less Swiss Army knife, more wooden spoon.