SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8
This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. I drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under real-world South African conditions. Most, but not all, the vehicles driven are world cars as well, so what you read here possibly applies to the models you get where you live.
My most recent drive is on the home page. Archived reviews and opinion pieces are in the active menu down the left side. Hover your cursor over a heading or manufacturer's name and follow the drop-down.
Posted: 18 December 2014
The cheat sheet
Price: R344 250
Engine: 1598 cc, belt-driven DOHC, 16-valve, four-cylinder turbopetrol
Power: 132 kW at 5500 rpm
Torque: 230 Nm between 2200 and 5400 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 8.3 seconds
Maximum speed: 220 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 10.1 l/100 km (driven briskly)
Tank: 56 litres
Luggage: 380 litres
Warranty: 5 years/120 000 km; with roadside assistance
Service plan: 5 years/90 000 km; at annual or 15 000 km intervals
Mother wouldn’t approve: “It’s impractical,” she would say, “only two doors, and that styling - way too fast-looking, and …”
“Sexy?” you suggest.
Boringly practical people agree with Mom. Opel’s Astra GTC 1.6 turbo coupé is essentially the same as the four-door Astra 1.6 turbo hatch; same engine, brakes, interior, leather sports seats, IntelliLink multimedia system – pretty much everything. And the plain car costs R28 000 less; justifying her contention that the GTC is not only impractical but expensive.
But its styling is sculpted, sexy and curvaceous - sharing scarcely a panel with its practical sister. There’s a real spoiler up on the roof rather than a feeble little lip, it sports a blacked-out diffuser panel at the back and features boldly styled 19-inch alloy wheels. The standard car only has 18” rims.
Did I mention HiPer Strut front suspension? The plain vanilla, four-door, practical hatch doesn’t have that either. It’s GM’s trade name for high performance strut suspension; a giant leap beyond those common McPherson front legs on ordinary cars.
HiPer Strut retains basic MacPherson-style design, but GM reduces the length of the spindle assembly by adding a second ball joint on top of the steering knuckle. The shorter spindle length reduces negative camber, putting more tyre width on the road. The second ball joint also de-couples the steering knuckle from the strut, helping to isolate unwanted feedback. The lower control arms are then attached to a rigid subframe, which is bolted to the structure with four isolators to further dampen noise and vibration.
What that technical jargon means is that it virtually eliminates torque steer inherent in high-powered front-wheel drive vehicles and improves overall drivability. The front wheels don’t go off on their own mission when you floor the gas, steering shock over irregular surfaces is reduced and you get improved steering precision and cornering performance in wet and dry. It also works better than ordinary McPherson struts do with bigger wheels – something stylists truly love.
It’s brilliant. It also shows that mechanical advances do take place in chassis technology, despite proliferating electronic assistance. The drawback is that it’s expensive to make, so it’s fitted only to premium, high performance cars – like GTC, OPC and Buick LaCrosse. Ford uses an equivalent called RevoKnuckle on its Focus RS. Whether it’s worth the extra money is up to you.
New for 2015 is IntelliLink, one of GM’s trade names for its built-in entertainment and communications systems. Apart from radio broadcasts (with voice control for certain systems available overseas), it plays MP3 and m4a files from flash sticks and via an eighth-inch auxiliary jack, streams music from phones and some sophisticated portable music players, displays your photo albums and lets you read incoming instant messages on the seven-inch colour display.
The version fitted to this car also plays CDs; with room for eight of them in the storage box under the central arm rest. For tech-heads, its output is 4x20 Watts via four ohms and playback is through seven speakers. That doesn’t sound like much to users accustomed to inaccurate sonic specification language but it has more than enough grunt, with pleasant sound quality, if you feed it a decent signal.
I have already dealt with boot size, passenger space and interior fittings in my reports on:
2010 Opel Astra launch,
2011 Opel Astra 1.6T Sport, and
2012 Opel Astra GTC 1.4 Enjoy,
So please feel free to follow any of the above links.
Impressions: The heated, leather-trimmed, sports seats with under-thigh extenders are exactly wide enough and nicely supportive without hugging too closely. The driver’s chair adjusts for height, reach, recline, tilt and lumbar support so anyone should be able to get comfortable.
The engine puts out more than enough power to get the job done; turning over at a fairly gentle 2750 rpm at 120 km/h in sixth gear. That is comfortably within its maximum torque band that runs from 2200 to 5400 revs per minute – meaning it pulls like a tiger right up to where maximum horsepower kicks in just 100 rpm higher. It spins easily to 6400 before hitting up against the limiter. Unlike most turbocharged cars however, it’s happiest when you play with the gearbox and keep revolutions on the boil; above 2500 at least.
That much-vaunted HiPer Strut front end does exactly what’s claimed, behaving pleasantly and hanging on confidently when pushed. Stepping straight out of an Isuzu double-cab and into this car, the difference in ride quality was noticeable. The GTC is a lot firmer and more sport oriented, but that’s to be expected.
While not quite as powerful as some other turbocharged 1600s, this GTC provides an excellent balance of properties and works well. Possibly a bit small to be called a true grand tourer, it nevertheless does a great job as a mini GT; if there is such a thing of course. It’s unbelievably sexy - and quick. And practical means whatever you want it to. Even Mom would come around eventually.
Test car from GMSA press fleet
This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.
I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.
Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so they can see I do actually exist.
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SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8