Opel's Astra Coupe must be liked

It’s getting more difficult to shout out loud about liking cars, isn’t it?

They’re trying to make it anti-social to want to drive. Sometimes it seems they’re trying to do to car-owning what they’ve done to cigarette smoking (which I don’t). What they’re trying to do to those of us who like the odd bottle of wine or couple of pints (which I do).

The Fun Police may not have uniforms, but they’re patrolling every corner of our lives. On bicycles, mostly.

(‘A bicycle is good enough for me, so it should be good enough for you, too ...’)

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hold a brief for traffic jams. I’m firmly against needless pollution. And I happen to believe in public transport as an option. When it goes where you want to go, WHEN you want to go. But just because public transport doesn’t suit me, I shouldn’t be penalised. Worse, I shouldn’t be made feel guilty.

(Actually, I don’t.)

And now, I’m shouting out loud for the Opel Astra Coupe.

Here’s fun. Here is also a practical car. And here is the smile on the face of the middle motorist, who doesn’t want the inadequacies of a ‘sports’ car nor the mundane looks of a ‘hotted’ version of a standard model. Especially not the ‘boy-racered’ treatment that is often the only option to mundane.

I liked the Astra Coupe when I first drove it across the small mountains of southern Sardinia. But I didn’t appreciate it properly then. Last week I got the opportunity to do so, on my home turf.

And I tell you now, there’s not a lot to touch it.

Critical colleagues cribbed that it didn’t look different enough from the standard Astra hatch. I wonder should they be still driving, or at least have their spectacles updated?

Look at the profile of the car. A Bertone bliss of sharp subtlety. No raves, just rightness. Not shapes for shape’s sake, but to serve both aesthetics and the needs of people being transported.

(In the absence still of ‘beam me’ there facilities, a car has to be a proper container. And a comfortable one, because ‘non-beam’ journeys take time.)

The superstructure is svelte, sure, but the Coupe is blunt where she should be blunt. That front owes less to aerodynamics, it might seem, than the rest of the car. But it has a sense of purpose. Of ‘I’m more than style’.

And the purpose is indeed more than style.

Certainly, the review car was plush inside, with leather and aircon and white-faced dials distinguishing from the standard Astra. Even the basic plastic parts that came from that worthy motoring machine are nevertheless of the best quality already. as, I feel, is build.

And coupe or not, the headroom in the rear was for a full six-footer. Not to mention the fact that both wife and daughter pronounced the rear seats even more comfortable than up front.

And, as against sports cars where you usually have to sacrifice luggage space for the sake of style, the Astra Coupe’s boot will hold the briefcase, the overnight cases for the weekend after Friday work, and the golf clubs as well (or, in my case, the Taylor Grand Auditorium).

It will transport all of us in very great comfort, thanks to a suspension that’s set to give a decent ride, without sacrificing anything in the handling department.

The power unit in the review car was the 2.2-litre aluminium engine built in the US, and it was probably the reason for the overall good feeling I got from my time in the car. It was lively, very responsive, and as free-revving as one could wish for. It even had a throatiness in higher revs that was almost Alfa-ish, that kept bringing me back for more.

(At which point I should mention that I’m writing this while seated in the navigator’s seat of the new Alfa 147. I don’t have to navigate, because colleague Tony Toner and myself are deep under an alp in the Frejus Tunnel. There’s only one way out, so he can’t get lost.)

Back in the Opel, it’s an awful pity that our draconian VRT regulations seriously penalise engines over two litres, because it means the kind of interesting drive this car gives is financially put out of the reach of many.

And before you overgreens out there go puce at the thought of people burning petrol through big engines, I got an average of 30mpg in a week of a lot of very mixed driving, city and country. That was, to my mind, quite respectable.

And we can take it that the same 2.2 is a clean machine in emissions terms compared to something produced even five years ago.

Anyway, enough proselytizing. What about other real parts of the car? Well, the controls are what is now expected from Opel: taut gearshift, a clutch which is long-travel but nicely progressive in bite, and brakes that are very definite.

The steering feel takes a modicum of getting used to, being very ‘straight-ahead’, if you know what I mean, strongly self-centering. No problem, though, and it does mean the coupe steers exactly where you think it towards.

This is helped by the stance of the car, which feels broad-footed, and is so on its low-profile tyres. That the ride as comfortable as experienced is a testament to how well the suspension is set up, because the combination of such rubbers and the requisite harder shocks for a sporty coupe could have left us with a hard run. Not so ... this car is as ready for the elegant drive to the ball as it is to amuse on a weekend mountain road.

But then, the basic Astra’s dynamics are superb anyway, and in this respect the car has been at least matching arch-rival Golf since the current model was introduced.

In sum, this particular Astra gave us much driving pleasure. In a way that was no hot-shot Harry performance, but more for what would be a fun and motoringly satisfying Grand Tour if we had the time and distance to do it in.

Even in the absence of that, we’ll heartily recommend it.