OPC Astra Test and Photos

[jimeegee]

Hi Guys,

Hope this isn't intruding. I previously owned a 2003 Astra Turbo and was very sad to have to let go of it.
With knowledge of this I was asked to be involved in a photoshoot and review of the OPC Astra.

I've been asked to write an unofficial review of it, but all I can be sure of is coming away with very mixed feelings.
I remember my Astra being a more satisfactory drive to be honest, but it was just so wet last weekend it was near impossible to get a decent read on the car.

Anyway, here is a link to a few photos I did manage to resurrect and on that page a link to the Adam Davis' impressions of it in the dry earlier that week.

Hope someone finds it useful!

http://opticalnote.com/blog/2013/07/22/opc-astra-gallery/
http://www.evomagazine.com.au/opel-astra-opc/

[JohnBu]

Let us know about your unofficial review of it.

I would say being wet won't do any high powered FWD car any favours.

[mickos]

Agree first impressions seem good give it a month to give a full review

[Potato-TS]

Damn there's a lot of buttons on the centre console. I used to have to set clocks for customer's, I can only imagine having to explain all of those buttons haha.

Looks good though, would be nice to see how it goes in the dry.

[nadg63]

Whilst it is a nice looking car, to be honest for that price bracket I personally would try finding a low km Ford RS Focus! (even though it obviously wouldn't be a brand new car)

[jimeegee]

Yeah, I felt my older XR5 was a better car. The XR5 is not as well refined, but the suspension tune in the Astra is pretty well sorted, and there is certainly a huge amount of power to play with, but there just wasn't as much character from the Astra despite having a slightly rev happier engine, and you could certainly feel it's weight in the corners. But again, it doesn't help that it was bordering on flooding on the test day, so it was slippery and while the LSD wasn't engaged to pull you through a corner until you got your right foot stuck into it a bit more, as soon as you did it would push wide forcing you to back off again. I have to admit I don't have experience in a front wheel drive with an LSD, so in this case I actually would have just preferred the inside wheel to spin up than to be pushed wide. Another guy on the test found it to be quite a tail happy car on the limit, but was tougher to control at the limit than the now 10 year old Astra Turbo. Still mixed feelings from me. Love the power, love the ability to soak up bumps, but it's really difficult to feel how fast the car is going because of it's seclusion from the outside world. To me it seems more like a GT hatchback than a sporty hatchback. It's still a great thing, but it's expensive for what it is and there are plenty of other competitors to consider that may have more benefits. Just depends what you're looking for. Should be interesting to see how the new Golf GTi stacks up, and as mentioned above, would you not just go for a Focus RS?

[OPC1]

I guess, for myself, coming off a series of higher-powered touring motorcycles, I am finding the throttle lag (or fudge) actually causes me more problems than the more direct throttle of the OPC or Sport modes. I tend to find that, especially taking off from a side street, that I subconsciously increase throttle 2 times before it starts to kick in, when in normal mode - which means it hits the TC (I'm too cheap to waste rubber by turning off TC & ABS) every time. When I have it in OPC mode, my arse hurts after the first 20 minutes, but I never really hit the TC at all. Sport is a reasonable compromise.

Mind you, it's only doing work as a commuter at the moment and so it's only done about 2000k's since I got it at the end of June.

[opc08u]

I still have my 2003 SRi Turbo as well as a new OPC and can say from my veiw point the new car has grown up, it's more sanitized and there is no feeling of speed as there is in the old car. While the new car brings a smile to my face everytime I get in the old one I have a much bigger smile.

[jimeegee]

A couple of great ways to sum it up. It's a bloody good drive and the journo who organised the drive was fortunate enough to test it for a week and got some dry weather running, sadly I could only see how it performed in the wet and honestly, you wouldn't push that hard anyway in those conditions if you owned it. The BRZ we had at the same time impressed me less and I thought it would be great fun. Again, perhaps if it was dry the story would be different. But it was certainly starved for power by comparison and felt like car from another generation to me. What's the hype about? Maybe I'll find out one day, but not on this day.

[nadg63]

Whilst it is a nice looking car, to be honest for that price bracket I personally would try finding a low km Ford RS Focus! (even though it obviously wouldn't be a brand new car)

After the news during the week an RS would definitely be the go now!