Friday 31st March 2017

Shed Of The Week: Vauxhall Astra Coupe

A 888 Turbo could now set you back more than £10K, but this Irmschered 2.2 is just £800...

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Irmscher is a German tuning outfit best known for its work with Vauxhall and Opel. Among other activities, they've been running Opel's factory rally and touring car teams. They even dabbled with Saab for a bit.

Check behind that bodykit for rust if you can!

Latterly they've been collaborating with Kia, a firm not known for its sporting intent up to now, but that's all changing it seems with the arrival of the rather hornalicious 360hp Stinger.

Anyway, what we're saying here is that Irmscher - celebrating its 50th anniversary next year - is a highly credible company. Looking at the fit of the bodykit on this Irmscher Astra Coupe, a full 15 years after it was first screwed on, it appears that they know their stuff in terms of both quality and styling. The Irmscher 'look' is sensibly non-value-damaging.

Which brings us to values. As mentioned on this very website recently, even tatty Astra Coupe 888s are attracting big price tags these days. Against that background, a clean looking, low mileage Irmscher Coupe with the attractive Bertone styled body and a 145hp 2.2 lump looks like pretty decent value at £800. The vendor isn't making anything out of the Irmscher connection, so let's keep that quiet.

Fairly sensible car, fairly sensible mileage

The 2.2 is not the ultimate choice for Coupe performance - that would be the 2.0 Turbo - but it is a tractable, reliable and highly tuneable unit with chain-driven cams. Its other advantage of course being that you won't be needing to replace any turbos, which is a distinct possibility with the 2.0 Turbo, what with it having a turbo and everything. Plus the Turbos did suffer from lag and a fairly nasty gearbox, and the chassis was pushed hard by the power. And they are dearer to insure.

Having said that, there is some history of chain tensioner oil feed problems on pre-2002 2.2s, so some sort of service history indicating regular oil changes or even better that the oil jet modification had been carried out would be a reassuring thing to find in the glovebox.

The ESP system is known for being a bit horrific in winter. You can retro-fit a new control switch that improves things no end.

The Alcantara-ish interior lasts well, as you can see from the pics. The shade of blue is perhaps a bit urgent but cheap sunglasses are available on most garage forecourts. As with any bodykitted car you should try and peer behind the plastics for any signs of rust. According to the MoT report, corrosion has started to take hold on the brake pipes, and it looks like new tyres will be needed also.

The last MoT report mentioned a constantly running fan. This is not unknown among Astras and could be a faulty temperature sensor. Trouble is there are more than one of them on an Astra and you might have to pay someone to find out which one it is. The Shed solution of course is to wear cheap garage headphones in the car, or better yet rent Mrs Shed as your passenger. Her constant rattle will drown out most noises, up to and including a Vulcan fly-past, and Shed's rental rates are incredibly reasonable. In fact, he'll pay you.

Here's the ad.

17-inch Alloy Wheels,Adjustable Steering Column/Wheel - Rake/Reach,Air Bag Driver,Air Bag Passenger,Air-Conditioning,Anti-Lock Brakes,Armrest - Rear,Body Colour Rear Wing Spoiler,Central Door Locking - Remote,Deadlocks,Electric Windows - Front,Front Fog Lights,Head Restraints - Front/Rear,Immobiliser,In Car Entertainment - Radio/CD,Mirrors External - Electric/Heated,Mirrors Internal - Automatic Dipping Rear View,Pearlescent Paint,Power-Assisted Steering,Seat Height Adjustment - Driver/Passenger,Seating Capacity - Four Seats,Side Protection Mouldings,Spare Wheel - Steel,Speakers - Six,Steering Wheel Mounted Controls - Audio,Traction Control System,Upholstery Cloth. September MOT. Sports Exhaust. HPi Clear. Drives well. Clean and tidy Astra Coupe. TRADE - WILL NOT BE CHECKED / PREPARED TO RETAIL MOTOR VEHICLE STANDARDS. IF YOU ARE NOT IN THE MOTOR TRADE PLEASE HAVE THIS CAR CHECKED BY A COMPETENT PERSON BEFORE PURCHASE TO ENSURE ITS SUITABILITY. Finance and nationwide delivery are not available on trade vehicles.

[Spannerski]

Cheap as chips.
Very 90's styling.

[great_kahn]

Great looking car, has aged well, no? I remember this gen of Astra being pretty well screwed together inside.

That 2.2 engine though, blaargh, very little to write home about.

[kambites]

Lovely looking thing, although I'd prefer it without the body kit.

I haven't driven a coupe, but the hatch handles in a tidy if entirely unremarkable way so I guess this will be at least as good? It's probably not going to compete with a Corrado or Integra in the handling stakes but for £800 it seems a bit unfair to complain.

[FN2TypeR]

Absolutely not.

[only1ian]

"hornalicious"

And an Astra Coupe!

This weeks SOTW brought to you by Kevin and Perry go large!

[Jimmy Recard]

kambites said:

Lovely looking thing, although I'd prefer it without the body kit.

I haven't driven a coupe, but the hatch handles in a tidy if entirely unremarkable way so I guess this will be at least as good? It's probably not going to compete with a Corrado or Integra in the handling stakes but for £800 it seems a bit unfair to complain.

It's no MX-5, but they're not bad. If I was on the hunt for a shed I'd consider it, but I'd prefer a 2.0 turbo. I found a copy of Top Gear magazine from 2002 at work the other day, there's a review of the convertible version of this. They seemed to like it

[Warpspeed1]

Shame they forgot to put some air into the left front tyre before taking the snaps - new tyre please!

[Jimmy Recard]

This beauty of a head unit was advertised on the opposite page

[lucido grigio]

I generally don't like Vauxhall but this is an interesting shed find.

Well done 7/10

[Steamer]

Okay - this one doesnt look too bad...

...But it always seems to an Astra of this shape or a Rover 25 that represents the arse-end of the boyracer brigade, hanging out in Tesco carpark after dark with a truly horrific 'modified' edition. Straight to the 'PH Council' thread I think.

[AlexC1981]

I had the 2.0 turbo about 9 or 10 years ago in the same colour. Owned by a friend of the family now. Nothing particularly outstanding about it, but it was nice to drive and I like how it looks. Good boot. Hard seats. Uninspiring interior (mine was all black and grey inside), but simple and well laid out.

[Drive Blind]

I'm not so sure the Irmscher kit is as OE as the article makes out.

The front bumper is an Astra GSi item?

[Roger Irrelevant]

Just trying to work out the maximum distance I'd rather walk than be seen in that. Quite far.

[Dion20vt]

Jimmy Recard said:

This beauty of a head unit was advertised on the opposite page

I had that sony head unit! T'was the bees knees at the local cruise... yo!

[Lugy]

I really quite like these, had a couple of 2.2s over the years. Engines are solid enough (but timing chain needs changed to revised kit!) if not particularly zippy though 150bhp is still adequate, as has already been mentioned, they're well put together and fairly decent steers. Never known any corrosion issues but I guess they're getting to the age where it could be a possibility.

[drgoatboy]

Had one of these for 6 months a few years back. I actually really liked the 2.2 plenty of grunt if not magnificently quick by modern standards.
Look great too, got quite a few positive comments on it.
Interior is extremely dull and pretty low rent but quite comfortable. Boot is big too if a little shallow... But the reason I only had it for 6 months was it was soooooo dull to drive. Completely devoid of any fun what so ever.

Still for £800 it's steal. Just don't expect to enjoy B road blasts much.

[defblade]

Trader, trying to sell to customers as "trade". Run, don't walk.
And please don't dignify anyone clearly trying to dodge their legal responsibilities before they even start with an entry in SotW.

[BFleming]

I remember getting an invite to a Vauxhall event at Brands Hatch having bought a new Astra SXI back in 1999 (V251MGW). It turned out to be a launch event for the Astra Coupe, so 6 weeks or so before the UK launch we got to drive the Coupe on track. I recall some lairy paint/leather combos (grey paint & red leather) but the cars drove ok. Pretty much the same as my SXI, funnily enough.
You could then choose 3 cars from the Vauxhall fleet of the day to drive on road, so I chose The Omega 3.2, a Frontera 2.2 DTI and something else forgettable. The Omega was a wafter, the updated Frontera was awful, dog awful.
Fast forward 17 years or so, and the Astra is SOTW, Omegas are still plentiful enough, and the Frontera is still a dog!

Edited by BFleming on Friday 31st March 10:39

[Boydie88]

Had the 1.8 for a few years, not a drive drive, but comfy coupe that easily fit 4 adults.

Loved the black and blue interior I recreated it on my VX220. The Europa blue paint come out fantastic after a clean and given I'm looking at a second car to take on the daily duties to revamp the VX, a little bit of me thinks it would be funny to have matching little and large.

[MorganP104]

This is that rarest of things - an eminently sensible shed that doesn't look all that sensible.

Friends and colleagues will think you've gone all racy, when in reality, all you've done is sink £800 into a sensible-as-a-cardy Astra.

As long as it can be persuaded to keep passing MoTs, I can't see this car losing much more in the way of value... Right up until it fails spectacularly, and needs to be weighed in. My spidey-sense tells me this car's got 4 or 5 more MoT passes left in it (with minimal/moderate fettling over the years, of course).