Britain’s Best Banger
Feel some love for the Vectra C.
Craig Cheetham surveys a range of decent vehicles you can easily pick up for less than £1000.
The poor old Vauxhall Vectra has never had a great reputation, ever since Jeremy Clarkson reviewed the first-generation model through a pub window because he was “too bored” to drive it. The reputational damage was unfortunate and also tough for Vauxhall to overcome. After all, the Vectra was its volume fleet model and the car it replaced, the Cavalier MKIII, was a superb car in its class, with lively engines, decent handling, neat styling and good build quality.
When it launched the ‘New Vectra’ in 2002, Vauxhall was very keen to avoid a repeat performance. Much was made of the car’s advanced engineering and upmarket cabin, as well as its refinement. Compared to any other car in its class, Vauxhall proclaimed, the Vectra C had much lower noise levels and a far stiffer body.
And it did, but the one thing it lacked was excitement. The styling was tidy but didn’t move things forward in the same way as rivals such as the elegant Mazda6, smart Ford Mondeo or rakish Renault Laguna. It was, to all intents and purposes, a bit ‘beige’ – a fact not helped by the company inviting a media posse to the factory in Ruesselsheim to watch the new car being built, only for the production line that day to be filled with Frankfurt taxi cabs fitted with steel wheels.
In sportier SRI and GSI trim, the Vectra looked much better. Dark indicator lenses instead of orange ones, tasteful alloy wheels in lieu of clumsy plastic wheel trims, and subtle side-skirts gave it a bit of grandeur that was lacking from lower trims, while the Elite models were graced with chrome door handles – essentially to help auction buyers identify them as they went through the block and thus preserve residual values.
In fairness to the Vectra, it was a decent drive. The handling wasn’t as edgy as the Mondeo or Mazda6, but the ride quality was arguably as good as a Jaguar, while refinement and noise insulation were second-to-none. If you needed to get from one location to another both quickly and quietly (and that was its primary purpose), then the Vectra was a very relaxing way to do it, as well as being impressively economical. It felt well-made, too – something that time has proven true, with far fewer corrosion problems than other family saloons of the same era, and chunky, soft-touch controls – if you can forgive it the world’s most irritating indicator stalks.
Overall they were pretty reliable (with the exception of the never-popular
2.2 petrol, with direct-injection and a timing chain seemingly made out of paper clips). Find a 1.8 petrol or 1.9 8v diesel (the two ‘weak links’ according to the automotive media of the day) and you’ll have a car that will run for many miles without major problems.
It’s also worth seeking out a post2005 car with the facelifted front end, which not only looked much more modern but also had a chassis developed by a team led by Simon Johnson, the engineer who managed the chassis development of the Ford Focus Mk1. Facelifted models are much sharper and more engaging to drive, with no trade-off in terms of refinement or ride comfort.
Seventeen years since launch and a decade since production ceased, only the very best Vectra C’s will set you back more than £1000. Most are cheap, unloved and disposable and – as a result – some of the cars on the market are truly awful. That’s not the Vectra’s fault so much as that of uncaring owners. When you can get a good one off a dealer’s forecourt for £995, there’s no reason not to.