SA Roadtests
South Africa
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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
*To read one of our road tests, just select from the menu on the left. Hover your cursor over the manufacturer's name, then choose from the drop-down menu.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.
Published in Witness Wheels on Thursday August 22, 2013
Two big quadrilateral pipes, both functional, stick out from the diffuser; a real winglet, rather than a moulded lip, is mounted on the roof; a special honeycomb grille projects Astra OPC’s aggressive intent and huge triangular vents, either side of the lower apron, duct filtered cooling air onto performance-hungry front brakes.
A work of art in themselves, compound 355x32 mm discs; cross-drilled, ventilated and significantly lighter than usual, are fed by an 18-inch booster. Lightweight Brembo four-piston calipers are shod with pads engineered for repeated high temperature use; to resist fade beyond any punishment you are likely to dish out. Twenty-inch alloys fitted with 245/35 Pirelli P Zero tyres fill the wheel wells.
Then the motor: Until just recently, the target was 100 horsepower per litre. This Astra delivers 103 kilowatts per litre, the highest specific output of any Opel petrol engine. OPC engineers reworked air intake and exhaust systems to maximise gas flow for best power delivery, then silenced the intake channel to eliminate turbo whistle. Direct fuel injection, a high-capacity twin-scroll turbocharger, double camshaft phasing and twin balance shafts all help the 1998 cm3 all-alloy, four-cylinder engine produce power to kill for.
And the suspension: It’s lowered 10 mm while high performance front struts, ZF Sachs dampers, heavier springs, thicker antiroll bars, reduced kingpin inclination and a Watts Linkage rear end are just the highlights. To put the power down effectively a mechanical, multi-plate, limited slip differential complements traction control and ESP to provide maximum drive stability; even in adverse conditions.
To ensure it all works reliably, they put it through 10 000 km, equivalent to 180 000 km of street use, on the rough and wicked Nordschleife. If you have to ask what that is, you have no business considering one of these.
We’ve been enthusiastic about reactive side cushions on Mercedes-AMG seats in the past, but that’s all they are; reactive. OPC provides a better, purist, alternative. Eighteen-way adjustable, saddle-stitched, black leather sports seats offer the usual fore and aft, up and down, tilt, recline, lumbar and under-thigh adjustment, but there’s more. Both cushions and backrests have electrically adjustable side bolsters to tailor optimum support; keeping you firmly in position all the time – much better.
While we’re there, a quick look around the office is in order. The plump and flat-bottomed steering wheel adjusts in and out and for height, but defaults toward low rather than high. Big aluminium pedals with rubber studs and a short stick for the six-speed manual transmission, placed at just the right reach and height, await your command. Deeply cowled circular instruments cluster around a square information screen, lights and wiper functions occupy a pair of stalks and then there’s the centre stack. Thirty-nine buttons and four knobs, ‘way too many in our opinion, are best left to one’s co-pilot to unscramble.
Fire it up. At first startup from cold, it idles quickly with a grumbling, rasping chatter that tells of its impatience to get going. Perhaps not quite as sexy as a big-bore V8, but it’s musical in its own way. Three driving modes, Opel calls it FlexRide, adjust damping, steering and throttle response to your every mood. Normal works well for daily use, while sport stiffens suspension to reduce body roll and makes steering more direct. OPC mode turns your instrument lighting Mephistopheles red and sharpens reactions even further.
No matter which mode is chosen, a gentle prod on the loud pedal at cruising speed calls up surging acceleration. On winding country roads with limited opportunities for overtaking, sport or OPC, together with a lower gear and forceful initiation result in a satisfying little twitch as the car straightens up to snarl past. It’s addictive.
If you insist on being practical, the 380-litre boot is nicely shaped and easy to load, while normally sized friends will fit into the back seat, although taller ones might find knee room a bit tight. Fuel economy isn’t great either. But if you wanted that, you wouldn’t buy a two-litre turbocharged firecracker, would you?
Test car from GMSA press fleet
The numbers
Price: R435 000
Engine: 1998 cc, turbocharged four-cylinder
Power: 206 kW at 5500 rpm
Torque: 400 Nm between 2450 and 4500 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 6,2 seconds
Maximum speed: Governed to 250 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 9,8 l/100 km
Tank: 56 litres
Warranty: 5 years/120 000 km; with roadside assistance
Service plan: 5 years/90 000 km; at yearly or 15 000 km intervals
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.
My reviews and launch reports appear on Thursdays in the Wheels supplement to The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles each month, most months of the year (except over the festive season) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police.
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