Million Dollar Saloon
Find the Million Dollar Saloon you want on this page or please view the following pages for more
Million Dollar Saloon.
The Vauxhall Insignia - A Classy Affair, If You Can Ignore the Badge
Without beating around the bush too much, I wasnýt exactly looking forward to writing about the Vauxhall Insignia. This was for one very particular reason though; it is the ancestor of the Vauxhall Vectra. The Vectra, in my humble opinion, was an absolutely terrible example of a mid-sized saloon. It looked ugly, it handled like an incontinent goat and it was about as exciting as tea with Granny. Vauxhall have since waded back into the Execu-cars market and have hopefully done a better job than last time. So is the Vauxhall Insignia any good?
Pete J Ridgard is a writer and a car enthusiast. He currently writes for the automotive industry. Here he discusses the Vauxhall Insignia.
From a distance it looks pretty similar to every other execu-car on the market; the sporty saloon shape, curvy body and elegant (if slightly understated) good looks. The Insignia definitely looks the part though and, frankly, the best looking Vauxhall ever created. The designers have made a really good job of creating a car that looks a lot more expensive than it is. The interior, as you would expect, has been designed with long journeys in mind. Cars of the Insigniaýs ilk spend the best part of their working lives bombing up and down motorways, so comfort is a necessity.
The Insignia also comes with an impressive array of engines ranging from peppy 1.8 petrols, to a rumbling 2.8V6, with enough petrol and diesel variation in-between. So depending on your preferences, there is bound to be an Insignia to suit everyoneýs driving preferences. But would you want one?
To answer as concisely as possible; yes, you would. Thankfully, after the mess that was the Vectra, Vauxhall have gone back to the drawing board and have actually designed a car that it is a pleasure to spend time in. The comfort is unrivalled for the price (starting at around the ý12,000 mark) and the performance is excellent. I generally donýt expect such responsiveness from a Saloon; the longer bodies and heavier chassis make pinpoint handling quite a chore, but the Vauxhall does exceedingly well on these grounds. It is capable of gliding round the tightest of corners, when most who drove the Vectra would be slowing down to 5 mph and turning the wheel like it was steering a boat in tough seas.
As you would expect the interior of the Insignia is relatively luxurious. The higher end models such as the Elite come equipped with an ýInfotainmentý centre, a ýFlexRide Switchý (for adapting the ride comfort depending on road surface), climate control, MP3 and seats with 4-way electric lumbar support. So either way you look at it, Vauxhall have certainly made the effort to make the Insignia comfortable and ever-so-slightly swish on the inside.
Cars like the Insignia are built to make impressions. The Insignia is intended to be a car used by Sales Reps and those amongst us who spend more time in boardroom meetings than with their families. This is why the Insignia will either succeed or fail purely on how well it looks pulling up outside an office. If you ignore the badge on the front, the Insignia could pass for a car twice its price, but with that griffin-badge on the front it canýt help but lose some of the class it has worked so hard to achieve. If you are a sales rep who isnýt too concerned with the connotations that inevitably come with Vauxhall ownership, then the Vauxhall Insignia is probably the best Saloon you will find at anything close to this price.
Comment on "The Vauxhall Insignia - A Classy Affair, If You Can Ignore the Badge"
