Even before it started appearing in British showrooms six months ago, the new British-built Vauxhall Astra had already staged one remarkable fightback.
Not long before its launch, plans had been laid for the closure of the Ellesmere Port plant, near Liverpool, that today builds about 30 new-generation Astras an hour and has been making General Motors’ small cars since the original Vauxhall Viva back in 1962.
The presumption that Astra production would move to Germany was turned on its head by an exceptional co-operative effort by Ellesmere Port’s staff and management, and the Astra’s status as Britain’s one locally built hatchback was preserved.
All of which is partly why we decided to run an Astra on our long-term fleet. The other reason is that early road tests have proved that the Astra is now right up there with the best cars in its hard-fought class.
But which Astra to run? Our tests had shown that the car was particularly strong in its lower-spec, lower-priced versions — and we might still run one of those — but the current wrong-headed move away from clean modern diesels plus the arrival in the Astra line-up of some very interesting gadgetry (especially Intellilux matrix headlights) made us decide on a semi-sporting SRi model with a 134bhp 1.6-litre fourcylinder diesel, a six-speed manual transmission, a built-in nav system and, of course, those lights.
The miracle of Ellesmere Port also made us want to collect the car directly from where it was manufactured, which is why, on a recent bright but extremely cold day, I pitched up at the factory’s visitors’ centre, first to meet plant director Stefan Fesser, then to tour the extensively modernised facility — which is getting ready to make Astra Sports Tourers (estates) — and finally to drive away in our brand-new red Astra SRi diesel, kitted with a modest but important collection of options that increased its standard price from the basic £21,480 to a drive-away total of £23,800.
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Clarification needed
There has got to be something
fact or fiction
1-2 hours'ish labour to take a bumper of?? is that a quote from a Vauxhall dealer and if so name them. Or is that something you made up, again!
Fiction
But better fiction than this review or people saying the car is near best in class or much improved. GM is incapable of creating anything decent. Not in their DNA.
ELLESMERE PORT