Category: Small Family 
Price Range: £14,865 to £21,490
Room, ride, handling and decent engines, making it good to drive and ride in. It's cheap to run, and provides good crash protection.
Dull interiors are a major flaw, it lacks individuality and looks boring besides more modern, striking rivals. A little pricey, considering some stingy standard specs.
Sensible, yet enjoyable to drive. If only it looked less dull, inside and out.
The Astra is not the most fashionable or cutting-edge car in its class, but it's a good, honest, bread-and-butter performer that can still hold its own against newer rivals. It's a lot more entertaining to drive than you'd think, with good sharp handling, suspension tuned by Lotus, strong, torquey engines and a definite solid, Germanic feel to it. The Astra is also cheap to run and insure, and is generally reliable and well-built.
It comes in a wide variety of bodystyles, including Coupe and Convertible forms (reviewed separately) and the engines range from the uninspired 1.4 (90bhp) right up to the 200bhp 2.0 GSI Turbo (also reviewed separately). On a more practical note, there are the economical but unrefined 1.7 DTi diesels and Dualfuel (LPG-petrol) versions of the 1.6 and 1.8. It's a shame the Astra looks so dull, but an all-new model, due for launch in late 2003, will be much more boldly styled.
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