Fire up the... Vauxhall Cascada

FORGET any ideas of this being a sports car. Even though it’s a swoopy two-door offering with a droptop roof and the word ‘Turbo’ in its name, to blast down the backroads is to miss the point of this al-fresco offering from Vauxhall.

Nope, the Cascada’s charms are altogether more grown up – four plump seats, a traditional, soft-top roof which stows away electrically in 12 seconds and endless opportunities to improve your tan. Enjoying this Astra-based open top tourer is all about relaxing, taking in the scenery, and letting the car’s supple suspension take the strain.

That’s why the Cascada is smooth and cosseting to drive rather than livewire, firm and immediate – in fact, the composed, chilled out way its front-wheel-drive underpinnings take corners is immediately familiar to anyone who’s piloted an Astra or Insignia for any meaningful mileage. The ride, in particular, is superb, with the uncomfortable shakes and vibrations of big cabriolets from a generation ago (Saab 900 Convertible, anyone?) all but a distant memory.

In fact, the only real weak link in the Cascada’s easy-going chain is that turbocharged engine – it’s a 170bhp 1.6 litre petrol lump and it’s far from lacking in pace, but the way it revs and scrabbles to put down its power is utterly at odds with the rest of the car’s character. The silky smooth, unstressed urge of a big V6 is what this car really deserves, but in this cost-conscious day and age the best engine the Cascada range offers is Vauxhall’s superb 2.0 litre turbodiesel.

One thing that is consistent through the range, however, are the looks; it’s not going to grace any bedroom wall posters any time soon, but you can’t deny the Cascada’s handsome in a restrained, intelligent sort of way. There’s an argument it’s not only better looking than Renault’s Megane CC, but BMW’s open-top 3-Series too.

Vauxhall’s biggest challenge is going to be persuading image-conscious convertible connoisseurs that the saving over a BMW 3-Series or an Audi A5 is worth forgoing the street cred of the German rivals. However, there’s still a gap left where the Saab 9-3 convertible left off.

In the Cascada, the company’s got a convertible capable enough of exploiting it.

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Vauxhall launches the smartphone-on-wheels

A LIMITED edition hatchback billed as ‘a smartphone on wheels’ is Vauxhall’s latest offering for fashion-conscious motorists.

Just 250 of the new versions of the ADAM supermini, called the ADAM Black and the ADAM White in honour of their distinctive paintjobs, are being created, and are designed to be fully compatible with the latest versions of the iPhone to help make it easier for buyers to use them on the move.

The new model, which is powered by a 1.4 litre petrol engine good for 87bhp, is available now and costs £14,995.

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Vauxhall launches four new special edition models

VAUXHALL has launched new, more lavishly-equipped versions of no less than four of its models.

The company said this week it has launched the new twists on the Corsa, Astra, Astra GTC and Insignia, called simply the Limited Edition versions, which include up to £2,000 worth of what were previously optional extras as standard.

The cheapest version, based on the Corsa, has a starting price of £8,995. To find out more about the Limited Edition range go to www.vauxhall.co.uk

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Fire up the... Vauxhall Corsa 1.4 SRI

LIKE garnishing an omelette with a helping of jalapeños, Vauxhall’s hoping that treating its supermini to the sporty SRI treatment will give the Corsa some added spice.

While it’s not the hottest Corsa on offer – that honour going to the track day fan’s favourite, the VXR Nürburgring – this SRI screams potential, thanks to the 17-inch alloy wheels and the bodykit inspired by its leerier big brother. But before I can find out whether it’s as enticing to drive as it to behold, it’s time to get a confession out of the way. Over the past few years I’ve driven a couple of Corsas – primarily the 1.0 litre Ecoflex and the 1.2 petrol versions – and haven’t exactly heaped praise on them.

Happily, things get off to a good start with the SRI once you hop inside – the red stitching on the steering wheel and the scarlet seat surrounds immediately give you the air of being inside something a bit special without straying into boy racer territory, and it’s more than comfortable and amply equipped for its £15,600 price tag. It suffers from the same enormous blind spots as its Corsa siblings, but that aside it’s somewhere you’ll enjoy being on even the longest of trips.

Thanks to its clever variable valve timing system the 1.4 petrol engine offers up plenty of punch without resorting to turbocharging, but because the real oomph’s only to be discovered above 3,000rpm it’s a car that encourages you to drive it by the scruff of its neck – probably the reason why I only managed, despite my best efforts, to get a shade over forty to the gallon in it. It’s great for rev-happy blasts along country lanes, but effortless motorway overtaking really isn’t the SRI’s strong suit.

It’s a similarly mixed bag when you get to the corners too, because while it handles with plenty of aplomb the steering is nowhere near sharp enough to encourage a keen driver to start enjoying it. The SRI is keenly priced, handles well and is still one of the best looking superminis on the market – particularly after Ford’s not entirely successful facelift of the Fiesta – but in every other respect it’s comprehensively outclassed not just by the Fiesta, but by Peugeot’s 208 as well.

 It’s got plenty to offer, but until Vauxhall’s new Corsa comes on stream next year I couldn’t really recommend it.

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Vauxhall hots up the Zafira Tourer to offer up space and pace

IF YOU'RE the sort of person who likes sports car pace but needs MPV pace then Vauxhall might have just the thing for you.

The company has offered us hotted-up versions of its Zafira people carrier before - notably the GSi Turbo of the early noughties, and the VXR models which followed it - and the latest version, the BiTurbo, follows very much in that vein.

Closely related to the Astra and Insignia BiTurbo models, the Zafira Tourer BiTurbo uses a twin-turbocharged diesel engine which offers up no less than 195bhp, meaning that it'll shoot to sixty in 8.5 seconds before going on to a top speed of 135mph.

Duncan Aldred, Vauxhall’s managing director, said: "Vauxhall is currently the only manufacturer to offer a sophisticated BiTurbo engine on a seven-seat MPV.

"It provides a perfect blend of high performance, impressive fuel economy and premium class quality in a seven-seat layout."

This is exactly the sort of modern day performance motor that presses all the right Life On Cars buttons. It offers not only a blend of practicality and turbocharged punch, but it's as pleasing to behold as a people mover can be and - because its a turbodiesel rather than a petrol - should be a little cheaper to run than its more extreme predecessors. Like the Skoda Octavia vRS and the sportier diesel Mondeos, it's quick in an unaffordable, unpretentious sort of way. I only hope it's as much fun to drive as the cracking Meriva Turbo I tried a couple of years ago.

If this sounds like the sort of go-faster people carrier you'd like on your driveway, go into a Vauxhall dealership with £27,685 and a big smile later this spring.

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Fire up the... Vauxhall Astra GTC

YOU know you're living in more stylish times when you can freely use “Vauxhall Astra” and “good looking” in the same sentence, but it's true. This new Vauxhall Astra is genuinely good looking.

There are, even if this aesthetically enlightened age plenty of cars you could call striking or challenging but the Astra GTC achieves something much more remarkable, it is one of those coupes that rings all the right visual eyes with almost everyone who takes it in.

Then again, twenty years ago the company's Calibra dissapointed drivers when it was launched, because under its equally striking skin were unexcitingly ordinary Cavalier mechanicals. In order to impress against the likes of Volkswagen's Scirocco and Hyundai's Veloster - which also offer sleek coupe lines with a hint of hatchback practicality - it'll have to offer substance to back its style up.

Like the Veedub and the Hyundai, the GTC's really more of a three-door hatchback with added glitz than a truly no compromises coupe, and while that means you might lose a little in glamour what you gain is big practicality, with genuinely useful headroom and legroom inside, even in the back, where most of its rivals lose out.

The 1.7 diesel version I tried offers plenty of punch too - it's a shame about the slightly tractoresque soundtrack you get when you start it up, but the tradeoff is a claimed 62 to the gallon and lots of low down torque to play with. Even more impressively, it's well equipped, coming with no less than six airbags and a stash of gadgets as standard.

Is it worth spending your £21,200 on? If you're looking for something with a lot of pose factor probably not - it's attractive but not attention-grabbingly so and interior's little staid for all its solidity, but if you're looking for a great looking car which appeals to your head and heart in equal measure it's well worth a look.

I'd still go for a Scirocco first but if the VW's not your bag, you'll love it.

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An open letter to Adam Vauxhall

DEAR Adam,

I thought I'd use my motoring column this week to write you, the new Vauxhall that's being pitched squarely at the MINI and the Fiat 500, an open letter.

Your creators have given you a human name to make you a bit more cute and cuddly, as though you're a beloved family friend rather than a tonne of metal on the driveway outside. You're emphatically not ‘the Adam'. You're just Adam, which I suppose saves people having to come up with their own pet names for you.

A couple of car fans I know have already been a bit cruel about you - why, they ask, have your creators broken into Ford's offices, cheekily photcopied the designs for the original Ka, and then tried to hide the crime by adding a couple of styling cues from other Vauxhall models? There's also the motoring press wondering how you'll compete with the cachet of the MINI Cooper and the Fiat 500, surely your closest competitors when you arrive in the showrooms next year. But, more than anything, it's your name that's got people flummoxed.

It's alright, I understand. On the continent you're sold as Adam Opel, which means you're named in honour of the man who set up one of Germany's oldest car companies. It's a bit like that time when millionaire hedonists were offered the chance to buy an Enzo Ferrari a couple of years ago, but the problem is that there never was a Brit motoring pioneer called Adam Vauxhall. In this country at least, the historical reference is completely lost on buyers.

Does it matter? Not, I reckon, if you offer your potential new owners the trick MINI, the Fiat 500 and Alfa's MiTo make their schtick; solid underpinnings dressed up in stylish clothes and garnished with a fun-to-drive feel. A trendy title is only half the story, which is why Chrysler's PT Cruiser left us cynical Brits, looking for substance to match the style, a bit cold. The new MINI, on the other hand, would still be brilliant even if it looked like a fridge rather than a ripoff of a cult classic. It offers an awful lot more than an evocative badge and a pretty face.

It's a shame, Adam, you weren't given a cooler-sounding moniker, but I look forward to finding out soon what you can bring to the small car table.



Best regards,


David Simister, Life On Cars

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Fire up the... Vauxhall Ampera

THIS eco-warrior has an electric motor. It also packs a good old fashioned petrol engine. So the new Ampera's a hybrid, right?

Not quite, Vauxhall reckon. I'll apologise for getting so blatantly and boringly technical this soon into a review but it's important you know why the Ampera, this year's European Car of the Year, does what it does. A hybrid like, say, a Toyota Prius or a Honda Insight, is powered by a petrol engine which uses electric energy to help it run more efficiently.

The Vauxhall's contender (and its sister car, the Chevrolet Volt) is one you'll appreciate if you're a train buff - it's an electric vehicle which uses a petrol engine not to power its wheels, but to recharge its batteries. It is, in trainspotter speak, a petrol-electric. Not nodded off yet, then?

The upshot of all that electric wizardry is that the Ampera can do something no other electric car can. It can run on amps alone for 35 miles - more, Vauxhall reckons, than most of us regularly commute - so you can happily pop to the shops in it during the week not burning any fuel at all, plug it into the mains when you get back and sit back, smiling smugly because you're helping to mend the holes in the ozone layer. The clever bit, though, is that once you get past that it'll call on Esso's finest to keep going, meaning the 1.4 litre engine normally sat on the sub's bench is able to get you to Aunt Mabel's house in Aberdeen just like any other car could. Try doing that in your Nissan LEAF.

Normally, it's the price that unravels it all but while at £30,000 the Ampera costs about the same as the high end versions of Vauxhall's own Insignia it's the same sort of car - a big, generously equipped saloon, even if it's got a dashboard straight out of the 1980s. It's even nice to drive in a comfy, cosseting sort of way, with plenty of room upfront and in the back.

The Ampera isn't an electric car in the truest sense of the word but instead manages to be something much better; an eco-friendly express that makes sense. It's an environmentalist statement disguised as a really good car.

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