OPEL Astra GTC Review

When you see this car and especially when you check out the list of technical goodies, you’ll expect to get a warm hatch experience while behind its wheel. So, so you? The answer to this question a bit complicated, so we’re going to use a few paragraphs to make things clear.

First of all, we have to tell you that the bits and pieces that sit under the car follow the recipe used by those that can be found on the outside in terms of being different to those used by the five-door Astra.

It all starts with the track and the wheelbase, which have been increased. While the latters helps the car offer decent rear-seat accommodation, the first works with another tech gimmick to make the car become friends with twisty roads. We are talking about Opel’s HiPerStrut suspension, which is borrowed from its big brother, the Insignia. This uses the MacPherson setup as a starting point and adds a knuckle that drags the steering axle closer to the center of the wheels.

Unfortunately, the rear axle was hit by cost reductions, so it inherited the five-door model’s setup, albeit with stiffer anti-roll bars. Thus, unlike VW or Ford, you don’t get a multilink layout, but a torsion beam an a Watt link.

In the real world, this means that you really sense there’s less understeer and you won’t have any torque steer issues, but when you push the car really hard into a corner the lack of a limited slip differential is immediately felt.

Our test car used the optional adaptive dampers, which Opel calls FlexRide and this allows the driver to use three modes: Normal, Sport and Tour. You can really feel the difference between these, so, for example, the Sport one doesn’t just change the interior lighting from white to red, it really helps the car reach its limits harder through the corners.

Under the bonnet, we get a turbocharged 1.6-liter unit that delivers 180 hp, but the ponies are only assisted by 230 Nm (178 lb-ft) of torque. You can feel the turbo lag below 2,000 rpm - this is an engine that likes is rev counter bent to the right. However, from the aforementioned point on it offer a pretty linear power delivery, but the mediocre torque figure means that you have to push it harder than you’d expect to get the most out of the car.

We used a six-speed manual gearbox and while it didn’t come with major flaws, it wasn’t in any way suitable for blitz-like changes required by extra spirited driving. Neither the mechanical bits and pieces, nor the shape of the shifter itself help the driver do this.

Now we can finally talk about the warm hatch experience. You can’t blame people for expecting such a thing from the car, since it has the looks, the hp rating and the fuel-sipping passion of a warm hatch, but doesn’t quite meet the criteria of the class.

The handling is 80 percent of what is should be for the car to be a good warm hatch and so is the engine, while the gearbox and the brakes fall down to 70 percent. But if you drive it anywhere from boulevard pace to “a bit quick” the car shows elegance and offers a smooth experience in terms of power delivery, comfort and soundproofing. Thus, it can put on both the urban and the open road apparels, but since the first doesn't come with warm hatch buttons, its cost in fuel isn't quite justified.