RE: 321bhp VXR Goes Toe-To-Toe With Audi

[n4aat]

Yuck!

One year old S4 is more appealling.

Though should go down a storm with promoted sales reps.

[Dave_ST220]

Chris_w666 said:

Vauxhall deserve some applause for having the balls to produce a car 25 people will want to buy when everyone else is trying to sell econoboxes that do eleventymillion mpg and slow us all down to save the planet.

[russellwatson17]

That car is ugly. All the lines look messed up! The insignia isnt exactly a beautiful car in standard form but all that muscular kit just messes it up even more!

[Broken Hero]

v10_gt said:

I like the look of that, quite 'aggresive'

[CorsaScott]

I like the shape, always thought it looked nice, but the poverty spec models never did it justice and kind of ruined it a bit for me. This looks rather nice I think, but it has to lose the fau chrome and the huge badges. Why do vauxhall keep making the badges bigger and bigger, and slapping more crappy plastic fake chrome all over their cars, cheapens them I think. Lose the chrome and the badges, in black and I reckon this could be fairly restrained.

I don't think they've been smart with the pricing though. They say it'll come in at just over £30k, well the VXR8 prices start at £35k, full specced up it'll come in at about, £39k? A fully specced up Insignia VXR would probably come in at about £35k - £36k, so I just can't see why anyone would take the insignia when for a relatively tiny bit more money (only an extra £3k or £4k on a car that comes in at over £35k) you could get yourself a VXR8, which as far as I can see, is better in every single way, apart from being RWD and not 4WD.

[FEZZA_RS]

There is an Insignia that lives at the bottom of my street its only a bogo rep spec one but i was nearly sick when i came home from work to find such an ugly lump parked in my street! Saying that it is browny greeny sick/poop coloured! I think this looks much better imo think the bumpers and big wheels go a long way to making it more appealing to look at. 300+ ponys will be fun but when someone like regal or courtney gets their mitts on one then i think a propper monster of a car will be made! Ill buy one in 4 years when they are 8k :P

[Wolfsbait]

£30k + for a Vauxhall? Are they on glue?

On the plus side, it's likely to be a rare sight on the road...

Who can seriously say they would spend their OWN cash on something that's likely to halve in value within minutes of leaving the forecourt?

[Broken Hero]

Wolfsbait said:

£30k + for a Vauxhall? Are they on glue?

How much is a Monaro or whatever they are called?

[Wolfsbait]

Monaro is more of a Holden than a Vauxhall.

Be interested to know how many people would actually part with their own cash for one of these versus a used S4 or even higher mile RS4...

[norman156]

Interesting but can't see it being a success what with badge snobbery and all. Badge snobbery is daft and I'm rather bad for it, see I wish they'd have just sold the Vauxhall Monaro as a Holden in the UK.

[Munter]

Wolfsbait said:

Who can seriously say they would spend their OWN cash on something that's likely to halve in value within minutes of leaving the forecourt?

But that applies to almost every car on sale. It's not exactly unique to this model. Drive a mid range Mondeo of the forcourt and you'll have the same questions asked about your sanity.

Unless the car is VERY lmited numbers who buys anything new. It's madness.

[Wolfsbait]

The point is, this one will lose more than most (proportionately)

And the VXL chap in the article specifically targeted Audi.

No chance.

[D7]

I really don't think it's as ugly as people are making out. Obviously it's no DB9, but as a functional/reasonably smart small exec saloon it's alright.

Maybe that's just my opinion.

Kind of looks like an Avensis/PassatCC/BMW5 (front/mid/rear respectively) bd three way lovechild to me.

In the nicest way possible of course.

[mark_mcd]

I think it looks pretty good. As long as it's slightly cheaper than the Audi it will likely be considered a decent car. I'd imagine the tuning options for the engine will make things much more interesting too.

[dpbird90]

I can't see why you're all slagging Vauxhall off for doing this, personally I like the way the Insignia looks, and 321bhp is more than enough to tempt anyone away from higher priced Audi's. There is 1 thing we should be slagging them off about though. They're making it 4WD; why not remove the front driveshafts, thus saving weight AND making it RWD? If they did then this would be more than enough to tempt people away from the S4

[D7]

dpbird90 said:

I can't see why you're all slagging Vauxhall off for doing this, personally I like the way the Insignia looks, and 321bhp is more than enough to tempt anyone away from higher priced Audi's. There is 1 thing we should be slagging them off about though. They're making it 4WD; why not remove the front driveshafts, thus saving weight AND making it RWD? If they did then this would be more than enough to tempt people away from the S4

If it was RWD only, it could tap into some of the Lotus Carlton "bonkers saloon" heritage, which may be a good selling point.

Not sure if customers of the Audi S4, with it's nose-heavy predictability, would really go for that though.

Edited by D7 on Wednesday 15th April 13:25

[CorsaScott]

dpbird90 said:

I can't see why you're all slagging Vauxhall off for doing this, personally I like the way the Insignia looks, and 321bhp is more than enough to tempt anyone away from higher priced Audi's. There is 1 thing we should be slagging them off about though. They're making it 4WD; why not remove the front driveshafts, thus saving weight AND making it RWD? If they did then this would be more than enough to tempt people away from the S4

But then all you've got it an underpowered VXR8. They already have a 4 door RWD super saloon, and it seems they've been swinging for Audi the whole time, hence 4WD to directly compete.

[Sivraj]

Well done Vauxhall
Come on Ford shows the Mondeo ST !!!
Bought an Astra 1.7D Design and the quality feels every bit as good as the Golf and the A3.
Both BMW and Audi need to justify there executive price tags,
I don't think that I would take an over priced second hand Audi over this to be honest.

[russy01]

i couldnt agree more.

BMW, audi the lot, they are great cars, but really do command a premium nowaday!! Why, whats so much better. There isnt anything, its just complete snobbery.

Lets least leave some of our feedback about this insignia till its been test driven, as as soon as topgear drives it and says its all great there will be a thread with you all going "what a bargain, lets get one"!!!

You need the lower marque manufacturers such as Vx, Ford etc as they set the future standards, they acutally go out there and make a car which looks different from the rest, look at the new shape civic, would you ever get a new BMW or Audi this radical. No, they just continue to make boring cars, for sometimes boring people as they want to go, "look at me, ive done well ive got a BMW" (when really they have skinted themselves getting a 318 debadged with M3 alloys and wind up windows) GET A LIFE!!!

Rant over.

[Spokey]

That car fell out of the ugly tree and got hit by every branch on the way down. Then the ugly tree fell on it. And then some rednecks came along, chopped the ugly tree up and sodomised the car with every bit of the chopped up tree.