We saw the flash of his camera before we saw him.
Stark, inimitable white pops against the hell-black bluster of a cold night in Denmark. No other patron of the three-hour slow ferry to Norway had chosen to brave the rain, but our man was on a mission. Working his way methodically around our car, he had the cherished event committed to memory card in moments before making good his escape back up the queue of bemused North Sea crossers.
Such behaviour isn’t uncommon in the esoteric world of driving just-launched cars, yet it generally doesn’t occur when you’re sitting in a three-box D-segment hatchback. The occasions when I can recall it happening to something sporting a Vauxhall badge (without a VXR emblem also attached) was bumped up from zero to one while we were waiting to board the boat at Hirtshals. But then I can’t recall another recent Griffin wearer looking quite as good as the new Insignia Grand Sport, either.
Later, as we returned to the car after a substantial on-board buffet, our Norwegian shadow reappeared, keen this time to speak. Ours was the first new Insignia he had seen and he was very excited, albeit in a typically understated Nordic way. He was definitely getting one. He didn’t enquire about the comparative quality of the car. That piece of information felt like a given.
The days of Vauxhall, Ford or even Volkswagen rolling out another so-so mainstream saloon-shaped product are long gone. The D-segment, while at the moment stalwartly big-selling, is being squeezed from all directions – and most of all from above. The day BMW and Audi discovered they could sell entry-level compact executive saloons for D-segment money was a dark one indeed for the old batting order. It didn’t stop the outgoing Insignia from selling like a hot cake, but even Vauxhall would admit that the premium manufacturers are now watched like W hawks seen from a rabbit warren. Hence the prospectively greater need for high-spec, high-powered bolters like this one: a 256bhp 2.0-litre petrol-fuelled, automatically geared, tri-coat painted, four-wheeldrive Norwegian heart breaker.
Join the debate
Will86
Stunning Photos
Tuatara
Vive la France
winniethewoo
Stunning photos. Shame about
Thekrankis
Norway looks cool!
Owen John
German alternatives?
Owen John
Straff
Cracking
xxxx
cracking car
typos1 - Just can’t respect opinion
Jimbbobw1977
xxxx wrote:
You can't really buy a particularly bad car these, and take for example the A4 or A5 your extra money buys you 4 rings and a perceived better quality interior. I bet the insignia will be more reliable and comfortable though..
Jimmyb
Blob
jason_recliner
Jimmyb wrote:
You could say the same about virtually any German car released in the last 30 - 40 years. While I more or less agree with you, manufacturing bland conservative blobs with high perceived quality hasn't done the German brands any harm.
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