The Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer will trump the load space of rivals from Ford and Volkswagen when it goes on sale in the autumn.
The wagon's revised bodyshell, styled by Mark Adams' design team and equipped with the same 'blades' in its flanks as the regular Astra, has been engineered at Vauxhall's R&D base in Bedfordshire, and the car will be built solely at Ellesmere Port.
See the Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer pictures
The new estate shares its wheelbase with the five-door, but the maximum load length grows 28mm, to 1835mm, and the boot space is up 30 litres, to 500 litres with the rear seats up. The seats can be folded flat to give 1550 litres of space; that¹s more than the Golf estate or Focus estate.
The engine line-up will feature three petrols and three diesels. The petrols will be a 99bhp 1.4, a 113bhp 1.6 and a 138bhp 1.4-litre turbo that returns 45.6mpg and emits 145g/km of CO2.
The diesels will be 1.7-litre units offering 108bhp or 123bhp, and a 2.0 with 158bhp. An Ecoflex variant will follow; it will have a 1.3-litre, 94bhp diesel with a variable-geometry turbo and stop-start.
The interior is likely to follow the regular five-door's, with a 'wing-shaped' fascia and ambient lighting. The cabin is said to have 75 litres of storage, an increase of 50 per cent over the old car's.
The chassis set-up will be similar to the hatchback's; the front and rear tracks are unchanged, and the Watt's link rear suspension is retained. The dampers have been revised, though, to cope with heftier loads.
The Sports Tourer will be available to order from October; first deliveries are expected before the end of this year.
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Re: Vauxhall Astra ST revealed
Erm, I own a Vauxhall Zafira and I'm happy with it. a) it's been a great car and b) it has tons of space.
The new Astra ST looks like it will only fulfil the first of those requirements, as does the new Zafira from the spy shots I've seen, that's why I'm annoyed...
Re: Vauxhall Astra ST revealed
Another good effort on the design front from Vauxhall I see. Their latest efforts are looking a lot more upmarket than they used to, and with the more space than the Golf and the Focus inside it should sell well too. So long as the extra space is usable and rear access is as good or better than its rivals, this will definitely be the car of choice out of the three. I do think that calling it a Sports Tourer is a mistake though...it's an estate. If they were to make a VXR version (would be fantastic although unlikely), then Sports Tourer would be apt. So other than the dodgy name, great car!
Re: Vauxhall Astra ST revealed
I think this looks very nice, but my overall impression is that its a very big car (for an Astra estate) - is it?