Vauxhall Antara review
by David Finlay (9 February 2011)
Although it has been around since the dying days of the Blair administration, the Vauxhall Antara SUV has so far been something of a minority interest in the UK, with annual sales just barely getting into four figures. Vauxhall's aim is to treble this performance (in the sense of achieving sales of 3000 per year, rather than reaching twelve figures) with the heavily revised Antara which will arrive on the UK market in late April.
Better be good, then, hadn't it? And indeed it is. You would think me a very dull fellow if I went through all the improvements individually, so let's just start from scratch. The bodyshell is basically the same as before, though with several styling tweaks inside and out to make it look more up-to-date. The glass area is unchanged, and you don't have to drive the Antara for very long before you discover that it has some enormous blind spots which make things like reversing and turning right far harder than they need to be.
That's about as critical as I'm going to be in this review, though. Under the bonnet there's a new 2.2-litre turbo diesel engine which is available in two forms, producing a maximum of either 161bhp or 181bhp (there's also a 2.4-litre petrol unit, but that's not coming to the UK).
Neither of them feels like it gives particularly startling performance, though the 181bhp car's top speed of 9.6 seconds and top speed of 124mph - assuming six-speed manual transmission - are decent enough on paper, and the lesser version is closer than the 20bhp shortfall would suggest, with key figures of 9.9 seconds and 117mph.
Perhaps part of the reason the Antara feels slow is that it's remarkably quiet. There's hardly any diesel clatter, and even when revved lustily the engine doesn't make its presence felt too strongly in the cabin. Road and wind noise are very well suppressed too.
The 161bhp engine is available in the entry-level model, which comes in the lower Exclusiv trim and has front-wheel drive and the manual gearbox mentioned earlier. About a third of UK customers are expected to pick this one, and they are the ones who will be able to say that they spent less than £20,000 on a new Antara. It costs £19,995 and has the best fuel economy (44.8mpg combined) and CO2 emissions (167g/km) in the range.
This doesn't make it any cheaper to tax than any of the other manual-transmission variants, since they all have CO2 emissions of 175g/km and are therefore in the same tax band, with VED payments of £250 in the first year and £180 from year two onwards.
The four-wheel drive cars are also available with a six-speed automatic gearbox which Vauxhall expects to account for one-fifth of UK sales. This blunts the performance somewhat - especially in the case of the 161bhp models - and pushes the CO2 emissions up to 205g/km (leading to VED payments of £550/£245), but if you either require or prefer the automatic the good news is that it's quite refined and shifts between ratios very smoothly.
Similar adjectives could be used to describe the ride and handling, both of which are exceptional for a tall and relatively bulky SUV. It would be paltering with the truth to suggest that the Antara feels sporty, but on the international press event it allowed itself to be hustled reasonably quickly along twisty back roads without doing anything it didn't ought to have, and later it wafted pleasantly along a motorway.
There's also the matter of its off-road capability, which Vauxhall demonstrated by creating the smallest test course of its type I have ever seen - you could have got round it in about a minute at a brisk walk. It wasn't very challenging, but it did show that the Antara copes well with steep slide slopes, tight approaches and departures and situations in which one wheel is left dangling way above the ground.
Needless to say, the front-wheel drive model wasn't put through any of this, and it's worth mentioning that its headline-dominating price is partly due to the fact that it has less equipment than 4x4 Antaras which are nominally in the same Exclusiv trim level. In fact, those cars - which still have the less powerful of the two engines - are significantly better equipped, with automatic lighting control, Trailer Stability Control, electronic climate control air-conditioning, front and rear parking assist, cruise control, heated front seats, an on-board computer with graphic information display, privacy glass and larger wheels. They're priced at £22,345 for the manual and £23,795 for the automatic.
SE models are considerably more expensive again, ranging in price from £24,395 for the 161bhp manual to £26,905 for the 181bhp auto. For the extra money you get even larger wheels (19" diameter now) plus heat-absorbing windscreen glass, automatic wipers. xenon headlights, leather seat facings, tyre pressure monitoring, a rear centre armrest and heated, powered, folding and (on the driver's side) dipping door mirrors, along with a few more trivial items.
There are only five optional extras, the major one being satellite navigation with Bluetooth connectivity, a DVD player and an iPod connection for £1100. That's not a bad price, I reckon, and nor is the £470 asked for metallic paint, though the idea of paying an extra £96 for floor mats makes my eyes water. Towbars are also available with 7-pin or 13-pin electrics at £595 and £645 respectively.
Front and rear passengers get plenty of room, and luggage space varies between 420 litres (rear seats up, loaded to the top of the seat backs) and 1420 litres (rear seats down, loaded to the roof) which is respectable enough among comparable SUVs without being outstanding.
What might you buy an Antara instead of? Vauxhall quotes the Ford Kuga, Kia Sportage, Nissan Qashqai and Volkswagen Tiguan as obvious rivals, and although there's some very tough competition in there I'd say the Antara is an exceptionally worthy rival not only to these but also to the much more expensive (and roomier and more impressively-badged) BMW X3.
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