Wild Opel Rocks e-xtreme takes the Citroën Ami off-road | GRR
The Citroën Ami is a weird, but wonderful thing. A quirky curiosity born of the brand’s not-always financially prudent way of developing radical new solutions to the automotive problems you didn’t know existed.
The Ami’s hugely clever and cost-effective design – just 2.41 metres long and providing seating for up to two people – uses as many repeat parts as is possible to deliver its tiny price tag. And subsequently, the whole car has been repeated by one of its Stellantis stablemates with the Rocks-e – a badge-engineered alternative from Opel.
The Opel take on the Ami’s curious form factor didn’t quite land with the same amount of impact when it was revealed last August, a good year and a half after the Ami’s startling introduction. Perhaps that’s why Opel is drumming up a bit of interest with this new wild one-off version it plans to make, which it calls the Rocks e-xtreme.
The Rocks e-xtreme is the winning entry in a design competition run by Opel over social media, this winning design selected by a jury including the CEO Florian Huettl, and British-born Mark Adams, who is Opel/Vauxhall’s Vice President of design.
It takes the tiny electric quadricycle and gives it some serious off-road equipment. Overhauled off-road suspension with double wishbones at the front, an increased ride height and track widths helplessly uncovered by the new extended wheel arches give the Rocks e-xtreme a stance as purposeful as anything this side of an Ariel Nomad.
New wheels are wrapped in chunky off-road tyres, while a new exterior roll-cage now surrounds the passenger cell, still offering seating for two. Front-facing LED spotlights are mounted on the top of the tubular cage, while a large rear wing emblazoned with ‘001’ numbering points out the Rocks e-xtreme’s position as a one-off.
It’s yet to be built, so no details relating to performance have been confirmed. But we’d wager the extra weight and rolling resistance may have a negative impact on the 8HP (6kW) electric motor’s pulling capability, and maximum 44-mile range offered up by the standard 5.5kWh battery pack.