Vauxhall Combo Life

HELLO £ 23,765 OTR/£27,015 as tested/£310pcm WHY IT’ S HERE Can Vauxhall’s Van-With-Windows bewitch a creative type? DRIVER Andy Franklin Combo Life – prepare yourself. This is Vauxhall’s introduction to the world of small MPVs for families and empty nesters, apparently. You might be wondering why in fact we’re running a car like this at TG – it’s all supercars and megasaloons, right? Yet we do also like to run the real world cars too that people actually buy (or stumble out of nightclubs into).

Vauxhall seems to be tackling the issue of perfecting a car for the family with more than three children. One of the unique selling points of the Combo Life is that it can hold three ISOFIX child seats across the back seats (the middle set if you have the third row). You have to be looking at Discoverys, Q7s and ex-buses to find something similarly commodious, and not everyone has that kind of money to blow.

We’ve opted for the Combo Life Energy (yes, Energy) XL 7-seater 1.5 turbodiesel. Phwoar indeed. The on-the-road price of £23,765 has been bumped up to £27,015 with options. Granted, that’s decadent. But the longer version is priced higher than the standard, which starts at £19,610. We have seven seats, and added options of Multimedia Navi Pro (£450), Parking pack (£400), head-up display (£355), wireless phone charging (£105), two-coat metallic paint (£565) and my favourite, ‘a glazed tailgate with opening heated’ for £305. I’m yet to work out exactly what ‘an opening heated’ actually involves. An exciting six months awaits.

Having recently been extracted from the pleasing luxury of a Hyundai Santa Fe, I’m interested to see how dropping a level of premiumness will affect my driving experience, if at all. Initial thoughts are that opting for the XL has maybe bitten off more size than we can park, and while it’s hardly a looker, the form-following-function box has been fully ticked. CHANCES ARE THAT YOU’VE PROBABLY NOT HEARD OF THE VAUXHALL