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Seventh color

Despite the absence of a compact sedan in our modeling compatriots in the model range (the former Astra, assembled in Togliatti under the brand of Cchevrolet Viva, do not take into account), Opel achieved impressive sales growth in Russia. Can you imagine what Opelian reports will look like now that such a car has finally appeared? However, the second question suggests itself: why in Rüsselsheim, when in 2004 the entire model range of new Astra was started, the sedan did not immediately design, but only three years later? It does not look like Opel could allow such a marketing miscalculation.
Notchback will be offered to customers in three versions. The initial Essentia is equipped only with the most necessary: \u200b\u200bfour pillows, central lock, electric windows in the front doors. Enjoy is the most advantageous option in price/comfort ratio. There is air conditioning, audio system, heating. Cosmo is the richest equipment: wheels from a light alloy, a two -color door cladding, a piano central console, a leather steering wheel.
The dilapidated, whistling in all the frets of the 154th Tupolev gently touched the landing strip and roared with reverse so that he drowned the applause of happy passengers. Three hours of fear and you are in paradise, a healthy man who was soaked from the airfobe, sitting in a neighboring chair, joked. By paradise, he apparently meant Antalya with a 32-degree heat atypical for October. In Moscow at this time there were only +4 and waited for snow.
 
One of the parking lots in front of the airport was forced by new sedans. I and Vadim from Drive.ru got a car at number 13. But the worst thing is that it turned out to be a dark color and even with a black salon. Having stood under the scorching Turkish sun for more than one hour, it turned into a hot hellish boiler on wheels. Do not mind if I drive a car? The colleague asked. I nodded, and thought to myself: in such a pitch I only want to steer an air conditioner.
 
The desired microclimate in the cabin was installed quickly, and a positive worldview returned with it. Great car is Astra Notchback. He rides softly, does not make noise very much, does not rattle and stinks with plastic, even the audio system sings Haifaino. The quality of the interior decoration is in no way inferior to the same Olesham-hatchbacks. This is not an irony, but a compliment. Those who are well acquainted with asters of different sowing will confirm: new generation machines in terms of interior quality differ as heaven and earth. In 2004, when Opel showed the new Astra, it was her salon, without hesitation, he would call the best in the compact class. However, now in a notchback he looked like a fresh angular style was not at all outdated, the black piano gloss of plastic panels added elegance.
 
I wonder why in official documents the novelty is classified as notchback? If the Germans wanted to say that the trunk opens as in Hatch, along with the rear windshield (as, for example, with Skoda Oktavia), then they will mislead the buyer. The feed of the car is crowned by a regular cover. This is probably an unambiguous hint of a more dynamic one than an ordinary sedan or hatch with an extended backward image, the image of a new Astra. During the official presentation, guesses confirmed the leading the ceremonies for a long time and enthusiastically talked about how harmoniously the line from the hood passes into the roof, goes around the rear doors and falls to the trunk. I will not argue everything. The back of the Astra was trained masterfully: it looks sports, does not weight the car visually, but has a giant 490-liter spaciousness. I will add: many competitors tried to achieve a similar effect in C-class sedans. As a result, close salons. But Opelian engineers managed to avoid this. How? Look at the profile. Wheelbase. This can be seen even without a line of Astra-sedan, it is huge (more than Vectra)! To do this, the engineers did not even have to invent anything the foundation, they borrowed from the Astra Universal.
On the four -lane highway, going from Antalya to the east of the country, traffic lights are in places. At one of them, the previous generation Astra sedan stopped next to us. The piquancy of the situation was that he was also new, as if just from the salon. The Turks, sitting at the wheel, looked at our Opel gaze of the jigit, whose bride was stolen. What did he think at that moment?
 
No, what were they thinking about in Rüsselsheim when planned the entire lineup? Why was it so tightened with a sedan? After all, this flower ended up in a flower bed only the seventh in a row he blossomed later than the station wagon, commercial car, OPC sports car, and even after Twin-Top coupe-and-aids! Marketing miscalculation? Hardly. Opel, after a new generation of Astra, did not spray strength and focused on the most actual hatchback in Western Europe. Then the entire German auto industry experienced a serious crisis of Opel had no right to make a mistake. And they managed to make a great car. And now, having removed the cream, they also come out with a sedan, whose success seems to be guaranteed with us. If we take into account that in the Old World interest in such bodies is returning, then the prospects of the novelty are loosened as cloudless as the sky over the Mediterranean coast.
 
A significant part of our route passed along the mountain road to Canyon Copru, where in the summer there are always full of those who decided to have fun with rafting. Serpentins with frequent height changes, along which a tourist bus is sick for at least an hour, on the Astra we walked in thirty minutes with stops for filming. Sometimes they drove into full speed, but there was no fear. This car is generally not capable of scaring this, I was convinced when it was my turn to get behind the wheel. Her reactions as shots of a slow -minded repetition. Everything is inhibited (due to a soft suspension), but predictable. The only fortel that this sedan is capable of is a smooth, sometimes vibrating demolition of the front, which is extinguished by itself when resetting speed. Boring, but reliably even a beginner will feel and will help out in time. At the same time, I will attribute modern brakes to the pluses. The basic configuration includes ABS, the system of distribution of brake forces in the bend and help with emergency braking.
On models that will go to Russia, while 115- and 140-horsepower gasoline Ecotec will be placed. Both engines, in my opinion, are weak for a car with such mass and dimensions as the Astra-sedan, and are noisy at medium (highway) speeds. With a manual box, the difference in the dynamics of acceleration is small, so I would choose a 1.6 motor for efficiency. But if you need an automatic transmission, then a 1.8-liter version deserves more attention. Let the archaic 4-speed machine is on it, due to which the characteristics of the machine are less attractive than that of 1.6-liter versions with robotic Isetronics, but such a car with great comfort drives, without twitching.
 
Finally, he rolled in the Astra and in the back seat. The scope here is the same as in the current vector. Here she seems to be the main ... competitor to the novelty. Astra-Sedan is more expensive than a hatchback (with the same configuration and with the same engine) about 15 thousand rubles. And, having paid another 41 thousand, you get a full -fledged class D sedan. Can't you think about it?
 
Abstracts after
1 Mission of a folk car is shifted to another GM brand to Chevrolet. Innovations, technologies, German quality are a new associative series for the Opel brand.
2 at the Opel plant in Glivitsa (Poland), where Zafira and Agila are already collected, the new Astra Notchback began to produce in parallel with the previous generation of Astra Classic.
3 In Western Europe, a compact sedan selects only one of the twenty buyers. But in Russia, as in Turkey, two out of three. So the new Astra is clearly bred for our gardens.
4 Notchback will appear in Spain, Greece, Finland, and even in Canada called Saturn Astra.
 
Opel Astra Notchback
Gasoline engine, 4 in a row
Working volume (cubic meter) 1598 (1796)
Power (L. S. with rpm) 115 at 6000 (140 at 6300)
Front drive
Gearbox 5-speed, mechanical
Length/width/height (mm) 4587/1753/1458
Equipped mass (kg) 1334
Maximum speed (km/h) 191 (207)
Acceleration to 100 km/h (c) 11.7 (10.2
) Fuel consumption (city/highway, l/100 km) 8.8/5.3 (10.0/5.9)
The price in Moscow from 528,000 rubles. (From 558,000 rubles)

Text: Ruslan Tarasov
Photo by the author
 

Source: "Autopilot"