Vauxhall Adam gets 1.0-litre turbo

Vauxhall has announced it will equip its tiny Adam city car with an even tinier engine: a new 1.0-litre, three-pot turbo.

It'll make its debut in the Adam next year, and not a moment too soon: the otherwise decent little Vauxhall has so far been let down by its last-gen engines.

That 113bhp is around 10bhp down on Ford's wonderful 1.0T Ecoboost engine in top tune - Ford also offers a 79bhp and 98bhp version - but the Adam's 1.0-litre also boasts 122lb ft of torque, which is more than Vauxhall's own 1.6-litre petrol.

Vauxhall tells us at full throttle - the only kind Top Gear really understands - the engine emits lower noise levels than the turbo'd 1.6, while emissions are tagged at under 100g/km, and economy is ‘impressive'. Expect it to return 60-odd mpg on the official cycle.

It'll be matched to a new six-speed manual gearbox designed for 'medium torque applications', one 30 per cent lighter than the current six-speeder. We're promised ‘superior shift quality', short lever travel and a low shifting effort. These are words we like.

This new engine is the first in a range of new powerplants for Vauxhall, with three new engine families and 13 new engines launched by 2016. Of course, dinky engines are all fine and dandy, but the one Adam engine you're all quietly contemplating is the VXR; don't forget, the Adam shares its front subframe with the Corsa, which means the 1.6-litre turbo with around 200bhp should slot straight in...