General Motors Europe UK unit Vauxhall has raised its forecast for Adam sales to 13,000 this year from an initial plan to sell around 8-9,000.

January sales topped 850.

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“We were cautious with Adam to start with,” said product chief Stuart Harris, noting it was, after all, a new model entering an unknown area of the market for the company.

That caution has paid off as the line enters its second year with demand growing and it starts to play a part in Vauxhall’s ambition to be the best selling brand in the UK by 2016.

The strategy was set out by then chairman and managing director Duncan Aldred who is now heading sales and marketing for Buick-GMC at GM’s headquarters in Detroit.

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That strategy is backed by substance, the company notes, with retail sales in January up 23.3% compared to January 2013 while total sales for the whole of last year rose more than 12% to top 289,000.

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With five new models due over the next couple of years, including a redesigned Corsa by the end of this year and a new UK-built Astra next year, Vauxhall is sure it can overtake Ford.

The UK is the biggest European market for the Corsa supermini with sales of around 83,000 a year, well ahead of Germany’s 50,000, and a healthy base on which to launch the new model.

Vauxhall said sales of the Meriva, just getting a facelift plus new more refined 1.6-litre diesel engine and ‘soft’ change manual gearbox, were up 26% last month.

The new Astra, most versions againt to be built at Ellesmere Port, will get far more UK-sourced content, rising from the current model’s 10% to more than 20%.

The company said sourcing components in sterling rather than euro will provide a competitive edge for selling cars to UK buyers.