Insignia’s at home in the Country

Tourer sure-footed with clever 4x4

ONE of the best cars I’ve driven this year is the Vauxhall Insignia estate – or, as its maker describes it, the Sports Tourer.

It’s attractive, spacious, perfectly sound to drive and exceptionally good value for money.

It’s slightly wilder brother, the Country Tourer, is essentially the Sports on stilts with some off-road hero bits added such as wheel arch cladding and front and rear skid plates.

And last week we tested the new version of the Country that comes with a four-wheel drive system featuring GKN’s Twinster technology which is also used on the Range Rover Evoque and the Ford Focus RS.

Instead of a conventional differential, the rear axle contains two electronically controlled clutches that can increase or decrease torque to one side or the other.

Vauxhall included a sort of dried out pond on our test route that looked worryingly challenging for an estate car that has only 25mm more ride height than the regular Insignia wagon, even if the car does have 4wd. And it came without fancy mud munching tyres too. But to my surprise, and relief, the Country Tourer happily dived down into the pond and climbed back out the other side. It was good on damp grass, too, and that surface can catch out the best of them.

The car is bigger than the previous Insignia, both in length of wheelbase (by 92mm) and interior space too. It has a luggage

area that can now hold 1,665 litres, made more versatile by 40/20/40 split rear seats that fold flat.

Roof rails are standard and you can put up to 100kg on them. Back inside, the car has the familiar Insignia dashboard that features a clear infotainment set-up and Vauxhall’s extremely useful OnStar system.

It now includes a service that helps subscribers make hotel bookings and a service to locate parking spaces. I’m not entirely

It’s good on damp grass, and that can catch out the best

sure I want people pondering if they want a room with a sea view when they should be focusing on driving, but there you go.

A novel feature is a knob on the driver’s door panel that allows you to control how high the powered tailgate will open so you can prevent it smacking itself against a low car park roof. Not a bad idea.

Currently the car comes with a 2.0-litre 172bhp diesel engine, but next month a twin-turbo version will be available that produces 213bhp. The 172bhp motor is easily powerful enough though, even with a whole family and their luggage on board.

You can choose between Vauxhall’s new 8-speed automatic gearbox, or the six-speed manual that was in our test car and was nice to use. You can’t really feel the 4x4 system on the road but the Country Tourer handles extremely well, with a comfortable ride and not much roll.

I suspect the clever rear axle is doing its work, but unobtrusively.

I’ve never owned an SUV and apart from the occasional pangs of desire for a 70s Range Rover, I doubt I ever will.

When I had small people and all their junk to lug about I bought estates and have had at least a dozen over the years, from Ford Escorts to Mercs.

The world has gone SUV mad but as Vauxhall’s extremely appealing Country Tourer shows, estates still make a lot of sense.

Our test car costs £27,235 (there’s only one trim level) but if you think that’s over the top, wait until you see how much the competition costs.