Vauxhall Insignia Grand Sport SRI Vx-line Nav 2.0 170PS Turbo D
Tested by Niall Hampton Price £23,800 Kerbweight 1582kg Towing limit 1950kg Towball limit 90kg
IN A NUTSHELL Stylish new hatch’s Continental baptism of fire
We’ve met the new Insignia already, both in Grand Sport and Sports Tourer forms, and come away impressed.
For a start, it looks the part – bearing in mind its mid-market, volume-production status, this is a seriously sharp-suited machine, particularly in hatchback Grand Sport form.
Then there’s the bang you get for your buck: this high-spec SRI Vx-line Nav comes with sat-nav, full bodykit and a 170PS turbodiesel motor with unobtrusive start/stop system, all for an affordable £23,800.
Inevitably, ours has a number of useful – such as the brilliant heads-up display – and not-sonecessary options, with the massive 20in alloys definitely falling into the latter category.
They seem to have a magnetic attraction for kerbs – even the delivery driver succumbed – and they add a jittery edge to an otherwise impressive ride.
The day after it arrived, the Vauxhall was thrown in at the deep end, hitching up the Caravelair Antarès 496 and heading straight for the crosschannel ferry to shoot this month’s cover feature.
The Grand Sport has a hefty 1950kg towing limit and an 85% match figure of 1345kg – the Caravelair was loaded close to a 75% match, so unsurprisingly, the car always bossed the van.
Gradual inclines on the motorway proved no problem, and lorries or slower vehicles could be overtaken without any alarming buffeting or rocking.
Unlike the old version, which was more about style than space, the new Insignia has a good-sized boot and generous rear legroom, but headroom is a bit restricted in the back, owing to that sloping roofline.
This also limits visibility through the fairly small rear screen, but fortunately, the reversing camera on our car was on hand to help with solo hitching, and the towing electrics are very easy to access. The action of the retractable towbar (part of the £685 Towing Pack) didn’t feel too reassuring on first use, but in fact it was fine.
We were cursing those 20in alloys again as we approached the town of Ypres, when they really took exception to the concrete section-laid local roads. With a jarring ‘b-dunk, b-dunk, b-dunk’ soundtrack, we thought the jigging motion was going to throw the van off the hitch, but in the end, we got there perfectly safely.
Apart from that, the only real negative – and this has been commented on by a couple of testers – has been the seats.
Our Insignia is fitted with ‘ergonomic sports-style’ seats, and from our experience so far, we’d save the £1155 extra and stick to the standard items, because on drives of more than a couple of hours, pilots have complained of lower back pain. It’s one of the few complaints we have about this otherwise very capable long-distance cruiser.