WHITE VAN PLAN
There’s plenty to admire in this versatile estate, writes Andrew Hoyle
Got a load on your mind? Then the Vauxhall Insignia Country Tourer could be just the car for you. I was pondering how to transport four fairly large dining chairs from a second-hand furniture shop to my house when the front-wheeldrive, eight-speed automatic estate presented itself.
Folding the rear seats down fully flat proved easy enough, and after 15 minutes of manual-consulting followed by a similar amount of time spent strenuously removing the hefty and rather awkward roller blind cover between the passenger area and the boot, I was rewarded with 1,665 litres of space – oodles in layman’s terms. Later I also managed to fit in two mountain bikes (not at the same time as the chairs) without the faff of removing the front wheels.
Elderly, enfeebled or just plain busy owners who may not have the strength, dexterity or desire to struggle with altering the interior structure themselves will have to enlist more agile assistants, or make do with the not insignificant space available when the rear seats remain upright.
The Country Tourer rides 25mm higher than the regular Insignia Sports Tourer estate, which doesn’t sound much to me but is said to allow it to tackle more rugged terrain, and will certainly come in handy if only to cope with the pot-hole riddled thoroughfares that blight towns and cities throughout this sceptred isle.
The last Vauxhall I owned – and loved –was a leafy-green Astra 4L petrol-engined was cruelly written off by heart less insurance company loss adjusters following a minor city bypass slip-road shunt in the winter of 2007. Oh well, these things happen. And in fairness it had the best part of 100,000 erratically-driven miles on the clock at that point.
Suffice to say, the Country Tourer shows how the marque has moved on from those days. Standard kit includes front and rear parking sensors, automatic lighting control, electrically operated front/rear windows, electrically adjustable/heated door mirrors, air conditioning, seven speakers, European sat nav system with eightinch colour touchscreen, plus keyless entry and start. Goodness, we were just happy if the Astra started first time.
The model I tested was the 2.0 turbo D 170PS Auto Blue-injection, which delivers a maximum torque of 295lb/ft at 1750-2500 rpm, wi that op speed of 135 mph–should you be germany’ s network of speed-limit less autobahns of course–and a 0-60mph time of 8.8 seconds.
The official mpg figures claim 37.2 for urban driving, 56.5 for extra-urban driving and a combined 47.1. For the few days that I had the Insignia, I drove it fairly rapidly, mainly around town and often in the responsive but presumably thirsty Sport mode, and managed to get an average of about 39mpg. Not too shabby. Its CO2 emissions are 157g/km.
The on-the-road price is £27,865, but my ride was enhanced by the likes of leather trim (£1,155), matrix LED headlights (£1,010), driving assistance pack four £595), winter pack two (£440), power tail gate with sensor (£380) and tri-coat premium paint (£725), making the total price for the Insignia a not-insignificant £32,170.