50 years later: Vauxhall Astra meets Victor at Millbrook

A big family car of the time, it’s 4.54m long, 1.69m wide and has a 2.67m wheelbase. As tested, it weighed 1344kg.

Today’s Astra – a small family hatchback – has an engine barely half that capacity and shorn of one cylinder. But the 1.2-litre triple makes 143bhp at 5500rpm and a fulsome 166lb ft at 2000-3500rpm, owing to a turbocharger that gets going early in the rev range. It too has a manual gearbox – although of six speeds – and drives the front wheels, as has largely become the norm for all but executive and sports cars.

Perhaps surprisingly, given that cars have tended to become bigger, the Astra, which technically sits in a lower class than the Victor, is notably shorter, at 4.37m, although with a similar 2.66m wheelbase. It’s wider, mind you, at 1.81m, which is no great surprise, considering modern safety demands. It’s claimed to be lighter, at 1280kg, but I suspect there isn’t much in it once the cars are laden.

The bigger numerical differences, then, come in the powertrain. The Victor, in its 20 April 1972 Autocar road test, managed to get from 0-60mph in 12.4sec, although these things aren’t totally representative, because that car was fitted with the optional three-speed automatic gearbox, not the standard manual.

We don’t have any as-tested figures for the latest Astra, but we don’t usually have difficulty hitting Vauxhall’s claims, either – a 0-62mph time of 8.8sec (call it 0-60mph in 8.5sec) is a 30% improvement in acceleration, with an engine half the size and the wrong driven wheels for a quick getaway.

It’s also vastly less consumptive. While we have trouble meeting most official fuel economy figures, the Astra in our experience will approach 50mpg in mixed driving. The Victor returned an average of 21.6mpg on test.

When we last road tested an Astra, it stopped from 30mph in 8.2m, while the Victor wanted an additional 1.5m – 18% more road – to stop. Although retardation of 0.95g is pretty good going for the old-stager.

The differences feel more marked when you drive the pair. Most of Millbrook’s roads and tracks still follow their original layout, inspired by the Milford facility. Arranging them was “like trying to follow a recipe”, according to John Wathew, who was the Vauxhall engineer put in charge of designing the layout at the time. Most notably, there’s a mile-long straight with both a short and a now rarely used longer approach road (for if you want a higher starting speed), plus a high-speed circular banked circuit with five lanes of differing neutral-steer speeds, on which Millbrook modestly claims speeds in excess of 150mph are possible (Autocar contributor Colin Goodwin once lapped it at 180mph in a Jaguar XJ220). Then there’s a short handling circuit and, perhaps best known of all, the Hill Route (aka the Alpine test track): more than four miles of hills with gradients from 6.5% to 26%. It’s still my favourite test route in the country.

I drive the Victor around them first. The initial differences between an old car and a new one are how airy old cars are. That’s because you wouldn’t want to crash one, I suppose. But the fact that there’s wood and blue carpets and velour and chrome is quite cool. Dated, obviously, but so too would be a 50-year-old suit or a 1970s living room. At least there’s a bit of character to it.

The engine, when it can be persuaded to start, is refined enough and the gearshift is genuinely good. But it’s noisy. Road noise, wind noise, engine noise: you name it, it has it. And although a 70mph cruise is possible, the Victor prefers 60mph. Its performance reminds you of a time when gravity was your friend.

Around the concrete inner handling circuit, whose sharp road edges and gravel always worry me, it’s a physical experience – the unassisted steering is nearly four turns lock-to-lock and I find myself shifting around on the broad seats as roll slowly sets in and the looseness of body control makes me fear the Victor will bottom out through the dips. But the tyres manage to squeal enthusiastically for the cameras and ultimately there’s reasonable grip.

Swapping to the Astra, though, shows you just how far things have come – and mostly for the better. Refinement levels are sky high compared with the Victor, with much reduced wind and engine noise and only a little road roar. But what’s most notable is how little effort today’s car takes; control weights have been refined and moderated, with assisted steering way more responsive and the modern car rolling far less and turning more willingly yet also proving more stable at speeds, which in turn it holds much more easily.

Old cars are lovely, but the new Astra makes the Victor feel like a pram in dynamic terms.