Test drive Opel Insignia sedan since 2008 sedan

Signs "premium"

Crisis, a crisis from all sides comes such moans. The press, on TV, are given numbers showing how everything is bad. Meanwhile, Opel submits a model for himself to the public. Insignia is not just Vectra, only new. She really carries options and technologies that you expect to meet premium brands in models. All these new items Kolesa.ru tested in the vicinity of the Austrian Salzburg, where the sled presentation of Insignia was held.
 
The new leader of the Rüsselhaim model range with his dimensions is clearly positioned as a representative of a modern D-class. Look at the photo, but the avant -garde solutions of French competitors or sculptural bells and whistles of senior German colleagues InSignia does not offer. Perhaps the exterior is somewhere between the strict Passat and the elaborate Mondeo. However, according to Mark Adams, vice president in the design of the European branch of GM, insignia brings emotions and passion to the Opel brand that will be characteristic of future models. Indeed, the time of serious burghers has passed. An active lifestyle of comprehensively developed personalities now in honor. And this is what Insignia offers.
The machine is based on the so -called mechatron chassis in which strength and electronic intelligence are intertwined so tightly that it is not to understand what more. There are two buttons on the dashboard: Sport and Tour. Pressing any of them translates the car system into one of the special mode - sports (illuminating, among other things, the wells of devices with red glow) and intended for long trips on suburban roads by tourist. And these are not just buttons and lines in the list of features. The behavior of the car it changes radically: the steering wheel, reactions to the gas pedal, the degree of intervention of the stabilization system and the operation of the optional electronic -controlled ADAPTIVE 4X4 -wheel drive and ammortizers all this depends on the selected mode. Moreover, the adaptive FlexRide system will receive opportunities in dynamics to determine road conditions and the control style preferred by the driver. Thus, Insignia can be a imposing road dreadnought, and almost a map depending on what is required of it at the moment. Great? Yes! But these are not all the tidbine features of the configuration.
In the cabin, the kingdom of high -quality plastic and inserts under no, not under a tree ... Rather, the inserts material imitate what is actually an undoubtedly expensive plastic with an unobtrusive, but pleasant pattern. It is a pity that the central console of the torpedo falls out of all this luxury. However, this is not fatal and on expensive trim levels its simple plastic is shaded by a luxurious color display and functional scattering of buttons. Yes, and sitting in comfortable ergonomic chairs, the subject of the reasonable pride of Opelians, I don’t want to look for jambs at all. The desire to finally go somewhere, not paying attention to the little things.
And then Insignia again presents a surprise in the form of the latest AFL+head control system. Automatic head light on Opel models is no longer in a novelty. Back in 2003, Vectra and Signum acquired such systems. But the intellectual AFL+ created together with Hella is recognized as a real breakthrough. Over a hundred kilometers of night serpentines, movements in the rain poured by the rain and the streets of small towns, neither the need nor the desire to intervene in its work arose. Drivers of oncoming and passing cars did not protest either. I would like to believe that in the Russian specification AFL+ will be present. Then we will check how its seven modes work in our climate.
However, a lot will have to be checked in our climate. According to the Ophelians, the configuration for Russia will more or less repeat European ones. Only now the declared lower bar is alarming 670 thousand rubles per base. You really are for such a gifted car. Anyway. As part of a test drive in the Austrian Salzburg, we managed to test cars with only three, of seven-available engines in Europe. And the configurations were top -end. The supply of cars to the Russian market promises to start in January-February next year. Then we’ll see if the basic car with 115-horsepower 1.6 decorated with the wing of insignia is so hot and so hot all-wheel drive INSIGNIA V6 2.8 about 260 horses under the hood. And the crisis. Yes, it will pass and, we hope, buyers of insignia will not save on expensive, but so attractive options. They are worth it.
 
 

 

Source: Wheel magazine [October 2008]