Yesterday Vauxhall teased its all-new affordable compact car and confirmed its name to be Viva, a nod to the successful Vauxhall Viva compact sold in the 60s and 70s. As expected, the Opel variation was also teased today, but rather unexpectedly, the German automaker revealed its name to ‘Karl’ rather than Agila.
The Karl will replace the Agila as Opel’s entry-level five-door compact. Opel says the Karl name is “short, snappy and catchy” and represents the brand’s core values: “German, emotional and approachable.”
Apart from the name, Opel also divulged a tiny bit more information about the upcoming compact than Vauxhall did. They say the car will be around 3.68 meters in length (about 12 feet) and have “up to five seats”. By comparison, the Adam is 12.1 feet long while the larger Corsa is 13.1 feet long.
The Karl name is meant to pay homage to Opel founder Adam Opel’s son, Carl. Adam Opel started the company as a bicycle manufacturer, however his sons Carl, Wilhelm and Fredrich turned the brand into an automobile company in 1898. The name could also be related to Opel’s current chairman, Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann, although the automaker did not make that connection.
According to Reuters, the Karl will sell for around 10,000 euros ($12,926 USD) when it goes on sale next Summer following its likely debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March.
Comments
So we already have an Adam, now a Karl … does this mean the new Corsa will be a ‘Manfred’, the new Astra a ‘Wilhelm’, with the new Insignia possibly a ‘Helga’?
And what of the Vauxhall versions? Certainly a ‘Wayne’ (in honour of Mr. Cherry’s stirling work with Vauxhall in the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s) is bound to be a runaway hit in the English county of Essex!
Come on Opel … why not just call the new baby Kadett, recalling past glories, as Vauxhall has done by resurrecting the Viva moniker.
Kadett resonates far better than Karl ever will with Opel fans around the world. Missed opportunity for sure
Kadett would have been nice!
You cant call the car Kadett cause of the line up essentially Astra succeeded Kadett in range and it wouldn’t be ok to have “bigger” name on smaller car. It is like Insignia replaced Vectra which became hated over time, although it is not the same story with Kadett it will need a lot of time to pass to have them back using the same name. Even Manta was considered to be used recently but , they didnt. So why would you have a new car in that was in Vectra now called Insignia put against old name which was used for the same class, but a bit smaller car.
This essentially will be new Chevrolet Spark placed in Opel’s range to compete against Fiat Panda
I think “Karl” is an excellent choice of name.
As the speaker before me demonstrated, the name provokes emotional reactions and controversy, which helps to force it into the mind of any one who is enraged or excited or simply astounded by the choice of this regular given name in German speaking areas of the globe… So that is already a big success of the Opel marketing department, i.e. Tina Müller.
And the four-letter-name “Karl” does present hardly any hurdle of pronounciation in non-German speaking areas.
Using the historic orthography of “Carl” instead would lead to different pronounciations in various languages. In Turkish e.g. the “c” is pronounced as a sonor “dz” like in “job”, while in the serbo-croat language and others it would be pronounced as “ts”, as in “tsarl”.
So, I think that chosing “Karl” is a very cute move by the Opel marketing.
In English, the name “Karl” became “Charles”. The German “Karl der Große” is “Charlemagne” in French.
But Karl is Karl. Prost!
I am still not sure about Karl. I also think that it’s a nice idea but in the same way, it’s very risky.
We weill see how the “normal” people (not the car guys and girls) will react.
Kadett for example would also fulfill all the things you mentioned and this name has a real history…
Observer7
Using the historic orthography of “Carl” instead would lead to different pronounciations in various languages. In Turkish e.g. the “c” is pronounced as a sonor “dz” like in “job”, while in the serbo-croat language and others it would be pronounced as “ts”, as in “tsarl”.
In Serbian language it is pronounced KARL and there is no “ts” in it thanks to Vuk Karadzidic. In Croatian language , although with exactly the same origin , but due to their Croatian pursue to different them from Serbian, they are forcing germanised pronunciation of some words and thus harming their language even more with foreign use of words by force.
Basically Karl is Karl even if it was written with Carl…
what is normal? . GOLF is normal or not. FIESTA- FOCUS-PANAMERA-CONTINETAL-MALIBU-ESCORT. WHAT IS NORMAL? one said normal is GOLF other think normal is KARL. i thin KARL is better and normal than GOLF.
proverb says that the name does not violate people. everyone can not like it, and it is completely normal. I believe that this car will be more women like adam and the customers at bay, it can be. After the women get together with Adam and Karl.
and perhaps needs to get used to a completely new name. ADAM sounds even better to me now than at the beginning and a very good one.
?
This new model is exempt from the Government car scrappage scheme – it can by flytipped anywhere on Oyston land free of charge.
Kadett is a top choice; but Karl is cute, gets attention, and changes the convo which is the ultimate goal of rebranding.
Opel can still use Kadett, would be a great name for a low cost sub brand. Maybe the Kadett Karl by Opel?
The automaker as changed a name from viva ‘revealed’ its name as ‘Karl’ . this company is manufacturing as five door car’s and producing in market. And it looks quite different.