Vauxhall Astra Ultimate: A compact, cheap upgrade with definite appeal

The Astra will adopt any personality its driver wants, from hot hatch to a stolid and economical three-door. It is a likeable servant, says Sean O'Grady

Well-built in Britain (for now), and well-finished, it is highly responsive, and will really get a move on if you ask it to (Photos Vauxhall)

The words “Vauxhall”, “Astra” and “ultimate” have but rarely featured in the same sentence. The Astra name, now well into its seventh iteration, has been around since 1979, and has, in its time, been a reliable, economical, durable and sometimes entertaining piece of machinery, more or less competitive with the likes of the Volkswagen Golf and Ford Focus.

It has helped support Vauxhall’s sales and finances for a good deal of the last four decades, helped rebuild the marque’s previously tarnished reputation for knocking out rust-buckets, and provided family transport for millions. It has been a remarkable phenomenon, hence its ubiquity.

But no-one would really call it the “ultimate”, exactly.

Except for Vauxhall, who are prepared to attract the sort of mild derision you read here. It’s a bit like when Skoda released their “Superb” exec saloon, or Kia launched the “Optima”. When you dare to put high-falutin’ labels on your products, then you should be prepared for some unusually close scrutiny.

Well, I certainly applied it to the Vauxhall Astra Ultimate edition. As the name implies, it’s an Astra, but loaded with the ultimate in kit. Or near enough. Virtually everything that can bolted, clipped, chipped and slipped into an Astra has been.

So the driver really wants for very little indeed. The options list is correspondingly short, but if you want to add to an already respectable specification you can, as on my test car, choose keyless stop and start, two-coat premium paint (especially lustrous), fully electric seats, and a power tilt and slide sunroof.

All that is on top of heated seats and steering wheel, 8-inch full colour touchscreen, leather trim, Apple car play and Android Auto, automatic adjustable cruise control, automatic lights, automatic wipers, dual zone “climate control”, hill start assist, tyre pressure warning, sat nav…

The only things you don’t seem to be able to get are proximity sensors (so the car will open if it “knows” it’s in your pocket, or some of the more outlandish customisation options a Mini will bring).

An automatic gearbox would also suit the Astra well, but the 1.6 litre engine and six-speed manual change are powerful and flexible respectively to make that less of an omission.

The spec

Vauxhall Astra Ultimate 1.6i    

Price: £30,490 (as tested; starts at £27,740)
Engine capacity: 1.6 litre petrol 4-cyl, 6-sp manual
Power output (ps @ rpm): 200@4,700-5,500
Top speed (mph): 146​
0-60mph (seconds): 6.6
Fuel economy (mpg): 45.6​
CO2 emissions (g/km): 142

You forget because it’s been around for so long, what an excellent car the Astra is. Well-built in Britain (for now), and well-finished, it is highly responsive, and will really get a move on if you ask it to.

The steering is, if anything a little too light, but the handling is safe and the Astra decelerates as well as it accelerates. The ride is supple, and the usual speed humps and pot holes are absorbed without too much discomfiture.

The Astra, then, will adopt any personality its driver wants, from warm hatch to stolid and economical hatchback. It is a likeable servant.

(Vauxhall (Vauxhall)

Apart from nit-picking about the options list I couldn’t find much to fault about the Astra. Maybe some of the more sophisticated customers may find it a little behind the very latest of its rivals, and will prefer the premium products such as the Mercedes A-Class, but the Astra was relaunched with an all-new platform in 2015, so it is no geriatric, and the quality is there.

However, it is some way into its production run, and now that the performance VXR model is no longer available (which might have qualified for the term “ultimate”) this fully kitted version has to fill the role of flagship for the Astra range. It’s not quite a “run out” special edition, where a manufacturer just chucks all the extras at an old design just to shift it out of the showrooms before it becomes officially obsolete – but it feels a bit like that.

On its own terms, though, a compact, luxurious but cheap to run model has a definite appeal. Few of its customers will notice the marginal differences handling or performance compared to the competition, and it’s still pretty up there with the rest of them in any case.

After the purchase of GM Europe (ie Opel and Vauxhall) by Peugeot croup, the next Astra will very likely be based on some shared platform with its Peugeot/Citroen equivalents, as hatches and compact SUVs, as is now the industry norm. This Astra will cease production next year, for contractual reasons.

In all probability the next Astra also be a well-engineered vehicle, and a comfortable one. However, the chances are that, post-Brexit, it won’t be manufactured at the Ellesmere Port plant, and it won’t have much that is British about it (despite Vauxhall’s current ad campaign as a “British brand since 1903” not that many of their current range are made on these shores).

This Astra Ultimate may or may not be the ultimate Astra, but it might well turn out to be the conclusive one.