AoA PWers,
I hope you guys are well. I have been a german car fan mostly, however, on a whim, I acquired this Vauxhall Astra Twintop as a project to restore during the winter months, where afternoons, evenings are dark and depressing and you can not do much outside.
A bit of background on the car:
The Car on the whole:
The car is a 2008 model in the Design trim. It is a twintop body type, which is Vauxhall's jargon for a hard-top convertible coupe. The car is attractive to look at, and, being a hard top convertible, it is very practical and usable in the British weather all year round.
The car is compact in size, owing to the cleverly designed 3 pc folding roof, you really don't need a big boot to accommodate the folded roof when you have the top down. The weight of the roof in the boot along with the strut braces add weight to the rear end while adding rigidity to the chassis, once the roof is down.
Being the not so basic model, I found that there's decent amount of kit added as standard on the car. I will discuss features and options in more detail further along in the post.
The Engine & Transmission:
The car has a 1.8L 4 Cylinder 16v petrol engine that produces 138 Bhp and 175 nm of torque. Official 0-60mph time is 10.7 seconds. The engine is rather punchy and can keep up with motorway traffic (70 mph) while it returns decent fuel economy (14 km/l local and 17.5 km/l on the motorway with AC). The transmission is a 5 speed manual transmission with a reverse gear on the opposite side ( Like most GM cars I suppose, Daewoo racer in Pakistan had that kind of a shifter layout)
Interior:
The interior is well kitted out with comfortable half leather seats with height adjustment and lumbar support, MP3 / Aux enabled audio with a monochrome display. Push start with Key-less entry. The cabin is a mix of leather and piano black plastic with silver accents. Steering wheel controls for audio and the on-board computer.
There's decent legroom given the size of the car both on the front and rear. a 6ft tall adult can comfortably be accommodated in the rear seat with the front seats less than half way forward.
There are powered mirrors for both front and rears and the wing mirrors are powered and heated. It has automatic lights and wipers on the front. However I do miss the rear wiper which is not there as the rear screen obviously needs to fold with the roof.
The car does not have Cruise Control, however it is a very easy retrofit and a quick upgrade, in the case of my car, just a matter of replacing the indicator stalk and enabling Cruise control on the ECU.
The wind breaker was an optional extra offered by Vauxhall and is not included on this car. Hence, wind makes it slightly difficult to drive at high speeds with the roof down.
Exterior
The exterior is finished in Star Silver metalic with matching bumpers, door handles and wing mirrors. 17 inch alloy wheels with relatively low profile tyres mean that the car sits on the road very nicely and handles very well.
Fog lamps are standard on the front and rear of the car. There's chrome trim on the front grill and the boot lid that compliments the car very nicely and a 3rd brake lamp (LED) is mounted on the boot lid as well. A chrome exhaust tip is a nice looking addition to the rear of the car.
