Vauxhall Vectra VXR Estate

The latest super-estates cost almost £80,000 - but can you have fun in a load lugger for a fraction of the price? PH borrows a VXR estate to find out...

A few weeks ago Audi launched a car called the RS6. We have become used to very quick cars being trapped inside estate bodies for some time now (think Audi RS2 and Volvo T5R) and it is as if some carmakers can’t get enough of the irony of a fast load lugger. But had Audi gone too far with the 572 bhp, twin-turbo Gallardo-blooded RS6? How quick do you want to go with a Labrador on spin-cycle in the back of your car? It turns out in the case of the Audi, around 200 mph (unlimted), with 60mph arriving in 4.6 seconds. So true supercar pace for the price of a saloon.

Well, not quite as it happens, the Audi is £78,000 - £1,000 more than the company’s new R8 supercar. Or to put it another way: the price of a Porsche 911 3.6 Carrera and a Volvo V50 estate. I started to wonder if the whole ‘hot estate’ thing had got out of hand. It was fun in the beginning but do you really want to spend as much as a Porsche GT3 just to beat one in a straight line, three children clinging on for dear life in the back? I wanted to know if it was still possible to humble established sports cars in a big estate, but at a fraction of the cost of exotic machinery, and then still have room for the shopping, bikes and a dog. For this reason I went and got myself this, a Vauxhall Vectra VXR estate, for a week to use for mountain biking, shopping and generally for moving stuff around. Whatever your preconceptions of this car (that’s you Top Gear viewers) you can’t argue that you get a lot of bangs for your bucks.

For £25,605 you get a hefty 276bhp from a 2.8 litre V6 with twin-scroll turbo. This equates to a top speed of 161mph and 0-60mph in 6.3seconds and the VXR will also thunder from 50 to 70mph in 7.6 seconds. Inside you get leather-trimmed Recaros, cruise, air, DAB radio with six-disc autochanger, unique red on black dials and leather trimmed wheel. On each corner are (optional) 19” alloys with 345mm discs at the front and 292mm at the back. There are also rain – sensitive wipers and Xenon headlights. All in all it seems like a lot of car for the money.

The first thing you notice about the Vectra VXR is how big it is. The styling of the car is perhaps an acquired taste, looking almost American or perhaps Australian in appearance. It may look a little dated and over-the-top but it is not an unattractive car and after a while I grew to quite like the car’s ‘up-yours’ looks. Inside there is bags of interior space and the luggage bay is huge. The cabin may be a bit plasticy but the Recaro seats are a quality product although not everyone in the PH office could get completely comfortable in them.

Starting the VXR up you are greeted by a boomy exhaust note from the two pipes that stick rudely out of the back. The VXR is easy to drive around town although the gearchange is a little notchy, but overall the car gives you little clue as to the power lurking underneath that metallic blue bonnet. Pulling on to the motorway you see the other side to the VXR. The V6 has plenty of low-rev pull and pushes this big Vauxhall forwards effortlessly. It is a smooth powerplant and once the turbo has spooled up the vast amounts of speed you are piling on almost catches you by surprise. The ride seems perfectly judged for motorways and the car wafts along, with power to spare. This is where the VXR feels at home, eating motorway miles and giving you enough power to pin you into the seat if you so desire. As a big meaty, cruiser the car seems supremely capable and the speeds on offer make it seem very good value indeed.

It is off the motorway that things get a little tricky. You quickly notice on roundabouts that all that power wants to push the nose wide constantly (it is front drive) and there is noticeable torque steer. There just seems to be far too much power for the VXR to deal with and things quickly get sloppy. This aside the VXR still remains fun in a perverse way, but it is advisable to use that straight line performance in exactly that: straight lines.

But as a tool for lumping around gear from place to place, comfortably and with enough power to brush off far more interesting machinery, it does the job well. I actually enjoyed my time with the car and, if you can live with the iffy handling, and have a lot of stuff to move around you could certainly do worse. You would get better handling in a BMW 3-series Touring but nowhere near the power or space. Different priorities for different people.

The VXR is clearly in a different league to the RS6 but if you have a sports car for driving and want an estate for lugging, but can’t quite bring yourself to go for something ‘sensible’, the VXR may be worth a look.

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MPG

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