Do City Car Racers Make You Want One Now?
What you’re looking at is an Opel EV city car amped up by design students to inject some excitement into pedestrian transportation. The powers that be don’t find the U.S. the right environment for city cars, and who are we to argue? But if these flamboyant applications to city cars become more common, we think they have a place here.
This is the Rocks e-Xtreme. Design student Lukas Wenzhöfer won an Opel competition which offered the winner to pay the cost of turning their proposal into a real-life vehicle. The team created a 3D model, and Opel followed every detail of the design.
Is the Opel Rocks e-Xtreme a production city car?
The quirky design is based on the Citroen Ami EV city car, which is sold through Opel dealers as the e-Rocks. But it doesn’t “rock,” i. Stock form. Widening the track of the front and rear wheels gives it a funky yet aggressive look. As much as we like the look, just imagine boggers or otherwise off-road tires.
And the crazy wheel/tire orientation is not just for looks. The design team also did the design for the suspension articulation so that it could translate into real life. It had to be if the designers expected it to become a reality.
How much is the Rocks e-Xtreme modified?
You need to look no further than comparing the e-Xtreme to the stock e-Rocks EV in the image above. All of the changes are flying beyond the car itself like a dragon. Maybe they should have called it the e-Dragon.
Besides the wheel/tire orientation, the body has a wrap of a roll cage that integrates well into the stock body. There are also roof-mount LED lights and LEDs adapted to the stock e-Rocks headlight housings. Then there’s the rear wing. It comes from the Vectra GTS V8 DTM race car. Just like the tires and suspension, the wing is ridiculously large.
Has the powertrain been modified?
Most of the rest of the extreme city car is stock e-Rocks. That means a single eight-hp motor with a 5.5-kWh lithium-ion battery. Parent company Stellantis is passing around the Renault AMI-based city car to other brands, which is how Opel got its version. So for our European friends, they’ll get to see the Rocks e-Extreme contest winner as Opel plans on touring it around in Europe and the U.K.
Would you want to drive one of these city car racers around your town? They’re a deranged take on the most base vehicles built. So why not have some fun while you’re commuting or trekking into town?
