Nice New Vauxhalls

The UK government scrappage scheme has provided a welcome boost for car sales across the country as drivers benefit the £2000 part exchange value for their 10-year old (or over) car.

The increase in sales has been dramatic, with sales of new cars up by around 11% over the same time period in 2008. Recognising the success of the scheme, the government has recently announced its extension, providing funds to cover an extra 100,000 vehicles.

This scheme is proving to be one of the most successful subsidies in the car industry in recent years. It seems that both sellers and buyers are in a winning position. The car manufacturers claim the boost in sales has safeguarded jobs and the car buyers benefit from a £2000 part exchange value that without the subsidy they would never have achieved.

According to WhatCar? Vauxhall has been one of the real winners of this scheme and is the only manufacturer to have two models in the top ten best sellers list for September 2009. The Vauxhall Cosra is number two in the list with sales of 16,379. The Vauxhall Astra is two places behind in fourth place with September sales recorded at 13,190 cars.

The sales figures will be welcome news to the workers at the two UK Vauxhall plants in Ellesmere Port and Luton, although the future of both sites remains uncertain following the take over by Canadian parts manufacturer Magna from US car giant GM.

The UK scrappage scheme funding is available when trading in any 10 year old or over used car as part exchange for a new car. It is not limited to Vauxhall. The scheme will not be available forever so to take advantage of it you need to act quickly.

Author Mark Woodcock

The UK government scrappage scheme has provided a welcome boost for car sales across the country as drivers benefit the £2000 part exchange value for their 10-year old (or over) car.

The increase in sales has been dramatic, with sales of new cars up by around 11% over the same time period in 2008. Recognising the success of the scheme, the government has recently announced its extension, providing funds to cover an extra 100,000 vehicles.

This scheme is proving to be one of the most successful subsidies in the car industry in recent years. It seems that both sellers and buyers are in a winning position. The car manufacturers claim the boost in sales has safeguarded jobs and the car buyers benefit from a £2000 part exchange value that without the subsidy they would never have achieved.

According to WhatCar? Vauxhall has been one of the real winners of this scheme and is the only manufacturer to have two models in the top ten best sellers list for September 2009. The Vauxhall Cosra is number two in the list with sales of 16,379. The Vauxhall Astra is two places behind in fourth place with September sales recorded at 13,190 cars.

The sales figures will be welcome news to the workers at the two UK Vauxhall plants in Ellesmere Port and Luton, although the future of both sites remains uncertain following the take over by Canadian parts manufacturer Magna from US car giant GM.

The UK scrappage scheme funding is available when trading in any 10 year old or over used car as part exchange for a new car. It is not limited to Vauxhall. The scheme will not be available forever so to take advantage of it you need to act quickly.

Author Mark Woodcock

Vauxhall, bless ‘em, have really made a major thing about trying to corner the market price for the sub compact car in the last 20 to 30 years.

Now that the Vauxhall Corsa has outgrown its micro status and moved into the heavyweight supermini class there has now appeared a gap within their product range and this is one thing that the new car is set to plug.

The idea says the company is to come in and provide a relatively cheap cheerful city car. Basically what has happened with most car manufacturers is that ever since the petrol crisis of the 70s effectively signed the death warrant for the gas guzzlers every man and his dog have been hell bent on trying to provide the smallest and most economic car possible.

The trouble is none of these companies have really got it right from the start and none of them got their analysis of the basic human psychology right.

Yes we all want something for nothing. Yes we all want a car that is as cheap as possible. Yes we’ll want a car that is going to run as cheaply as possible and yes we’ll want a car that would provide all of the previous things (at once as well) but we all want our creature comforts as well.

Therein lines the problem. You see everything is a matter of compromise and nowhere has this become more self-evident than in the sub compact sector of the Automobile Industry. What has happened here is that ever since the manufacturers all launched their micro cars with such missionary zeal in the early eighties is that slowly but surely they have added one extra feature after another so that their original concept has been slowly compromised.

As babies grow into little children and little children grow into big children so have the micro cars grown into the super Mini category. So much so that their involvement has led to manufacturers now announcing that they need a car to take over where the old ones left off.

Such as the new Vauxhall Nova. Proudly following on from the tradition set down in 1983 when the initial Nova was launched, the new Agila as it is now known is aimed at taking off where the original Nova left off. The car is a true hybrid of all of General Motors (Vauxhalls Parent Company) international car divisions. Based around a basic Suzuki platform built at the Japanese companies Hungarian Manufacturing plant the car will share most of its parts with the new Suzuki Splash.

The new Agila is longer than its predecessor but not as tall. The car will come with two classes of petrol driven engine, the 1 litre version and the 1.2 litre version. A 5 speed manual gearbox will be standard in most of the cars but buyers of the 1.2 version will be offered the opportunity of an automatic gearbox.

The company also plans to release a diesel powered version of the car with possibly a 1.3 litre diesel engine in the not too distant future.

The company plan to release the Agila officially to the marketplace at this years Frankfurt motor show in September with the car going on sale to the general public in the spring of 2008.

Stephen Morgan

In this time of motoring crisis, where petrol is rocketing in price and environmentalists are screaming for us to drive about in what appear to be battery powered chest freezers, it’s clear that car manufacturers need to take note.

All the big players are either producing hybrid vehicles or tiny hatchbacks with even smaller emissions. Vauxhall are one of the biggest players on the car scene and you’d expect them to be the market leader in eco-friendly terms. A trip to your Vauxhall dealer however, will show that someone at HQ didn’t get the low emissions memo. Whether it’s a Corsa, Vectra or even a Zafira, Vauxhall offer them all with a ‘VXR’ badge, which helps turn even the most mild-mannered hatchback/saloon/MPV into a raging beast that gorges on the tarmac it rides on top of. Vauxhall seem to have got the mix right too, with the Corsa still flying off the shelves in standard or VXR guise.

Despite this clever juggling of which versions will meet with public demand, Vauxhall dealers have a secret hidden away, probably chained up in the attic of their showrooms throughout the world. The secret isn’t based on any other Vauxhall model, isn’t available in different trims and in this current economic climate, really shouldn’t be in production at all. The secret? The Vauxhall VXR8.

Perhaps better known as the successor to the Vauxhall Monaro, the VXR8 is Vauxhall’s most raucous hotrod ever. Packing a 6.0 litre engine under the bonnet, you get the impression the word ‘hybrid’ would be met with a confused expression from the VXR8. The performance figures are pretty impressive too, with rear wheel drive helping get 400bhp onto the road in a 0-60mph time of 4.9 seconds. Top speed hasn’t been officially recorded, presumably because Vauxhall fired the designer that missed the memo. Nevertheless other reviewers have easily hit 170mph+ and I’m happy to agree this is possible. Oh, did I mention it’s got four doors?

The VXR8 looks every inch the racing saloon, which when you consider its original form is as a Holden Commodore, mostly seen racing in Australia, this doesn’t surprise. Everything is big, brash and organic – it really is man and machine, with no fancy computers or iPod docking to get in the way of driving. 19 inch alloy wheels adorn the four corners and a rear spoiler helps block out the majority of rear visibility. In fact the wheels and spoiler look almost too small with the flared wheel arches and aggressive front end making the car as big and butch as Bruce Willis.

Just like Bruce, the VXR8 has a presence although the styling certainly won’t be to everyone’s taste. Inside, as you’d expect from a four door saloon, room is plentiful, so even a six-footer like me in the rear still has ample head and legroom. In the UK the car costs £35,000 which compared to it’s rivals will leave you with plenty of spare change. There are few clues as to where this money has been saved, although parts of the interior do give the game away a tad. Some of the plastics do feel like Vauxhall had just £100 left to finish the inside. However, it is put together well and ultimately its how it drives that’s the big winner.

There’s nothing subtle about how the VXR8 puts its power down and it sounds as though the earth is changing orbit when it does so. Gigantic brakes and suspension help keep you on the road and it really can handle a corner – as you’d expect from its racing heritage. The gearbox is slick and helps maintain the car’s feel of being raw and being put on this planet for one reason – to go fast.

Yet despite all this tyre burning and pedal-to-the-metal mayhem, the VXR8 has a trump card. On the motorway, because the engine is crucially full of torque, the 6.0 litre unit barely ticks over, thus returning a heart warming and wallet smiling 27mpg. Yes, town driving sees the consumption rocket faster than a space shuttle launch, but taking the VXR8 into town is like shackling a bear in a cage – they’d both be far happier roaming free.

In summary Vauxhall’s latest whiplash inducer sees the driver taken back to a time when driving was a steering wheel, four tyres and a seat. You feel every movement the car makes in a time when computers seem to control every bit of driving in other sports saloons. Looks like Vauxhall HQ did get the environmental memo. They’ve gone organic and grown their own drivers’ car.

Tom London