14 Feb 06
There's more headroom than you'll ever have cause to need - unless you have a penchant for top hats or Marge Simpson haircuts - and any mixture of five adults / teenagers / OAPs / children will be able to sit comfortably. If you've not got the need for the full complement of seats in the back, you can drop the centre rear seat out of the way and bring the two outer seats in to give more elbow room. This also allows you to push the rear seats back into the boot area between the suspension turrets - thereby stopping the annoying blighters, sorry, precious cargo, kicking the backs of the front seats at every opportunity.
The £16,495 price tag is pretty good too - you won't find a faster compact MPV for the money. However, as the Meriva VXR is a bit of an oddball in its own right, it's not really a frumpy-looking family wagon - more a slightly left-field alternative to a high-spec Focus, mid-spec Golf, or even an entry-level 1-Series.
It'll be a damn sight more exclusive: Vauxhall only hope to sell 400 a year. So why not buck the trend and choose something a bit different - who wants to be a sheep all their life?
