Vauxhall Astra

The Vauxhall Astra is a 3/5-door hatchback / 4-door sedan/saloon / 3/5-door estate / 3-door panel van from Vauxhall, built from 1980, in the age of turbocharging and the first electronic engine management.

Where it came from

The Vauxhall Astra is a compact car/small family car (C-segment) that has been sold by Vauxhall since 1980. Over its eight generations, it has been made at several GM/Opel/Stellantis plants around Europe; however, most versions have been sourced from Vauxhall's plant at Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, United Kingdom.

For its first two generations, the nameplate was applied to right-hand drive versions of the Opel Kadett for use in the UK. Since 1991, Opel has used the Astra nameplate on its B/C-platform. General Motors' Saturn division in the United States also offered a Belgian-built version of the Astra as a captive import from late 2007 until Saturn was discontinued following GM's 2010 bankruptcy.

Under the skin

The record carries the shape — a 3/5-door hatchback / 4-door sedan/saloon / 3/5-door estate / 3-door panel van — and the layout: the engine drives the front wheels, the packaging choice that gives a small car a big cabin. The engine, output and weight have not yet reached the open record, and MotorJury does not guess at them.

In context

Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Vauxhall Viva / Vauxhall Chevette; assembly was at Bochum, Germany. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Audi Quattro, the Dodge Ram, the Lancia Delta — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the Vauxhall catalogue sit the Vauxhall 10-4 and the Vauxhall 30/98.

What it costs now

MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Vauxhall Astra has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.