Insignia’s a blast for the space race
Vauxhall is a great looking family car
MY mate George is a car snob, or he was until his bargain Maserati Quattroporte nearly put him on the streets in a cardboard box.
The same cardboard box that the £4,000 replacement rear suspension came in. He’s since seen sense and has abandoned bargain supercars with posh badges for a Ford Fiesta.
He’s still a bit of a snob though and it’s testament to the new Vauxhall Insignia Sports Tourer that George gave it the thumbs-up this week. “Looks great,” he observed. “And it’s a Vauxhall.” He’s right – the latest Vauxhall estate is certainly a looker. My favourite estate of the moment is the Volvo V90 but at £40k+ it’s double the price of this one.
Our test car is in SRi Nav spec and costs £22,740 but the most basic Design model costs under 20 grand if you’re not bothered about toys. It also undercuts a VW Passat’s list price by around £4,000 but if you read today’s news story you’ll know that you can get a massive deal on that car.
The VW doesn’t look as good and neither does the Ford Mondeo estate – and that car doesn’t have as much luggage space as the Insignia. Seats in place, the Sports Tourer has 560 litres – and with them folded has 1,665 litres of luggage space, which is 60 litres more than the Ford in both configurations. There’s plenty of rear legroom too, thanks to a longer wheelbase than the last Insignia estate. Our car has a tailgate that requires an old-fashioned human to open and close,