Road Test

Vauxhall Agila

Test date Wednesday, March 19, 2008  Price as tested £8,495

As you might expect from a car in a range with an entry-level price of £7595, there is no techno-trickery of any great note on the Agila.

It comes with three engines, two of which – the 1.0-litre three-cylinder unit on the test car and the 1.3-litre diesel – are General Motors engines, while the 1.2-litre four-cylinder motor is supplied by Suzuki.

For the first time a four-speed automatic gearbox is available, but even though it’s fitted to the 85bhp/86lb ft 1.2-litre engine it saps acceleration to sub-1.0-litre level, which is not something most people are going to want to countenance. The much better alternative is the standard five-speed manual.

Suspension comes from the time-honoured, simple, cheap and easy-to-package solution of MacPherson struts at the front and a simple torsion beam axle behind. Essentially it’s the same mechanical layout as the previous generation Agila, but now with wider tracks, lower-mounted suspension arms and the addition of a front anti-roll bar. It also now shares the same line in the same factory in Hungary as the Splash.

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