Out Of Green by Robin Marshall

In part, the Frontera was a victim of timing. When Opel launched it on the world, there really wasn’t much competition around. Look at the SUV market now, and that might seem like a good thing. But back then, if you weren’t as robust as a Land Rover, Mercedes G Wagon or Toyota Land Cruiser, or as luxurious as the Range Rover, what was the point?

With modern SUVs, such as the Antara, the “what’s the point?” question is just as valid; it is simply that people have stopped asking it. Well, the point is, do you want an auto that is easy to access, has a good driving position, is safe for the passengers and won’t let you down at the golf club? And that, increasingly, is an equation that can be answered only by the SUV market. The original fit-for-purpose agrarian workhorse that was the Land Rover and its ilk has been replaced with a lifestyle statement. And the Antara ticks all the right boxes in that department.

For a start, it looks good. It is, by the standards of some, not least its GM stablemate the Hummer, a relatively small SUV. But the important word there is “relatively.” It is still bigger than the vast majority of private autos on the road. And size does add gravitas to a vehicle. As is increasingly the way, Antara shares its platform with another close cousin, the Chevrolet Captiva. The two are not dissimilar in looks, but the Opel is the more handsome of the two, and a much better-looking vehicle than the Frontera.

When I brought the car home for the first time, my wife’s immediate reaction was “Wow, now that’s a car,” followed swiftly by “Why can’t I have one?” “Hello, darling” was only the third thing she said to me. Lili, my almost-six-year-old petrol head-in-training simply said “Cool car, Daddy!”

The styling touches are good. The “sharks gill” air vent just behind the front wheel (which looks as if it might be some kind of cooling devise for the brakes, but is, in effect, purely cosmetic) is aggressive and virtually unique. The Range Rover has a less obvious horizontal grill, and on the Chevy it looks like a smaller afterthought, as if the stylists weren’t going to follow their colleagues at Opel, but then discovered there was a hole in the panel anyway.

How well the Antara performs off-road is, in many respects, a redundant question, since most owners will never take it far from the tarmac surfaces that lead to the shopping mall or the little ones’ school. But it does have four-wheel drive, and that makes it far safer in treacherous driving conditions such as snow and ice. And, should you find yourself stuck in a boggy music festival car park, the good news is that it coped well enough with wet grass, too, when I was putting it through its paces.

The other benefits are there too; an elevated driving position gives the person behind the wheel a better view of the road (and kids a better view of the world in general), and there is the general feeling you get that little harm will come to you inside the passenger safety cell.

Our test vehicle was a very well appointed 2-lt CDTI, a 5-gear automatic, with the Cosmo trim package. The current list price at the time of writing was Ft9.2m (about $50,200). A Blue Tooth-enabled infotainment center, incorporating six-disc CD changer, sat-nav, plus all the usual GM driver management information (fuel economy, average speed, trip distance, tire pressure etc) gave all the feedback you could wish for. 

The fully adjustable leather seats were extremely comfortable; the driving position good with a remarkable number of functions available from steering wheel-mounted buttons. On the motorway, it was very easy to drive. There was very little noise intrusion into the cabin, and the combination of driver comfort plus cruise control, automatic gears and a gutsy engine meant even long trips were less tiring.

There was plenty of room all round for driver and passengers, and the luggage capacity is adequate, if not spectacular. You can drop the 60/40% split rear seat, of course, and, there is an option that allows the front passenger seat back to fold flat. That makes for a useful work area for your laptop, but really comes into its own if you have to shift long loads, such as a ladder or skis. Still, if you are going on a long family holiday, and especially if you take the dog, you will probably need to invest in a luggage top box.

One brilliant piece of engineering, though, took care of the mountain bikes. Opel has included an option called the Flex-Fix system, also used on the Corsa. Hidden within the rear bumper below the tailgate, it is an extendable cycle rack, complete with a set of tail-lights, that will safely, and securely, hold a pair of bikes.

The sat-nav was annoyingly incomplete, however. My hometown of Gödöllô has only two streets named. More worryingly, the extension of the M5 motorway, which was completed a good two or three years ago, and which takes traffic right into the major southern city of Szeged, isn’t listed at all. The display did at least give me the illusion of an off-road excursion, apparently plowing through endless fields, while the computer urged me to find my way back to Route 5.

But despite all that, I fell a little in love with the car, something I find it is always more dangerous to admit to yourself than to a car salesman.

True enough, this is no speed-rocket, but then it was never intended as such. SUVs are not sports cars. I have never understood the obsession of the likes of Porsche and Ferrari with producing the world’s fastest off-road capable vehicle. It is like speed walking, a race that really interests only those competing. If you want a sports car, Ferrari and Porsche make fabulous autos; an SUV is supposed to perform an entirely different function.

Opel believes the 2-lt diesel engined unit I drove will be its best seller. If that’s true, then I think it has missed a trick. Europe seems to be falling in love with the SUV just as America is falling out of it. All the major European marques now offer their own version – Ford recently launched its Kuga – but Opel’s American parent, GM, announced this year it would be switching its balance from a 60/40% split in favor of trucks (largely pick-ups and SUVs) over ordinary road cars towards a 50-50% mix. Ford in the US has said something similar. The reason is falling SUV sales in the US, largely driven by rising fuel costs.

In three months of driving, on what would be a fairly typical mix of motorways and urban streets for a car of this type (discounting any off-road activity), and without a particularly heavy right foot, I could average only 10.5lts/100km. That’s better, of course, than many gas-guzzlers (perhaps most famously the Hummer), but it is nothing to write home about either. And that’s especially the case when the likes of Jeep are putting out similarly powered vehicles with a claimed return of around 7lt/100km. 

When I tested the Jeep Patriot recently, I couldn’t manage that, but I did average 8.5 without trying particularly hard. And that, I think, could become a problem for Opel.

Opel Antara

Engine: 2l CTDI
Performance: 110kW (150 HP)
0-100km/h: 12,1s
Top speed: 178km/h

Consumption (during the testdrive):
10.5l / 100km"

Source: Budapest Sun