A Grand new car but small price tag
Vauxhall Insignia undercuts its rivals
IGNORE the somewhat pumped-up Grand Sport bit in its name, the new Vauxhall Insignia is a very good car that’s on sale for a very reasonable price.
The traditional four-door saloon has taken a battering from SUVs and crossovers for the last few years, but people do still buy Ford Mondeos and Vauxhall Insignias. And most drive them as company cars.
Both firms would sell even more of their respective saloons if it wasn’t for the modern miracle of leasing. Why go for a Vauxhall when for a few quid more a month you can put a leased Merc or an Audi on the drive?
But Vauxhall has gone all out to make the new Insignia Grand Sport great value for money for companies and individuals.
Prices start as low as £17,115, but we’re testing a Design Nav spec car fitted with a 1.6-litre diesel that produces 108bhp.
At £19,280, it undercuts all rivals in the same class and is cheaper than the smaller Skoda Octavia too. There are plenty of engine choices, including more powerful 2.0-litre diesels, and there’s the option of four-wheel drive and an eight-speed automatic gearbox. You can spend a lot on an Insignia if you want to, but by far the best and most interesting buys are the cheapest ones. Not least because even this sub-£20k model comes with an 8in colour infotainment system, sat-nav, onboard 4G wi-fi, keyless
In the right colour it looks more interesting than an Audi
entry and a good range of electronic safety aids. You also get Vauxhall’s magic OnStar concierge system – which, by pressing a button in the roof, connects you to a real person who will send you navigation advice.
The team that designed this new Vauxhall have done a fantastic job. In the right colour, it looks more interesting than an Audi A4 or a Jaguar XE. Even the wheels on our test car, which are steel with hub caps, are cleverly designed so that they look like alloys.
The Grand Sport is built on a completely new platform that has allowed the engineers to stretch the car’s wheelbase. That in turn has made for a larger passenger cabin. There’s an impressive amount of room in the back, although the headroom is slightly compromised by the car’s elegant swooping profile at the back. There’s another trade-off in the boot because that spacious rear has robbed the luggage area of a few litres. It’s not particularly deep but more than adequate for pushchairs and big suitcases.
Back down at the driving end, we’ve a mixture of materials from soft touch on the upper dashboard, door tops and edges of the centre console to more harsher hard plastics lower down around the steering column.
Not surprisingly, a 108bhp engine has to be worked quite hard in what is a substantial car. It doesn’t feel underpowered though. The official fuel consumption is 70.6mpg and you won’t have trouble achieving late 50s mpg figures in practice. Vauxhall tests its prototypes on our rubbish and underfunded roads with the result that the Insignia Grand Sport rides comfortably over ridges and cracks yet doesn’t roll around corners. It’s not a sporty drive but is safe, comfortable and relaxing to drive.
While I doubt the new Vauxhall Insignia Grand Sport heralds a great comeback for the four-door saloon, it certainly shows that there’s still space on the showroom floor for an attractive, elegant and very affordable traditional saloon car.