Vauxhall Astra 1.6 GTC first drive

What’s new? Might not seem an important change, giving a car a glass roof, as it has become a bit of a fashion. However, the Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch GTC’s panoramic roof is entirely different to anything else on the market. Not only does it put a sheet of glass above your head, it also does away with the load-bearing rail above the windscreen. What’s it like? As a result of this £850 option, the Sport Hatch GTC seems more open than many an open car. Most modern convertibles, especially those with folding steel roofs, have high screens and sturdy top-rails so that when you look up with the top down, there’s a fat and often ugly steel and vinyl structure right in the way. In the GTC your view extends upwards without interruption. Curiously, this unusual feature seems to add detail to what you see along the road, and gives an equally mysterious feeling of space. ?Should I get one? If a sunroof is around £600, then this has to be worth twice as much as that. And at £850, it’s a steal. On the move, there’s no difference between a Sport Hatch and a Sport Hatch GTC, besides the panorama. Vauxhall’s engineers say the GTC’s big bonded glass panel makes its body just as rigid as the full steel one, and on a brief drive we could notice no difference in wind or road noise. The big advance is what you see when you look out of the car, and many buyers will find it fascinating. Steve Cropley

Steve Cropley

Title: Editor-in-chief

Steve Cropley is the oldest of Autocar’s editorial team, or the most experienced if you want to be polite about it. He joined over 30 years ago, and has driven many cars and interviewed many people in half a century in the business.

Cropley, who regards himself as the magazine’s “long stop”, has seen many changes since Autocar was a print-only affair, but claims that in such a fast moving environment he has little appetite for looking back.

He has been surprised and delighted by the generous reception afforded the My Week In Cars podcast he makes with long suffering colleague Matt Prior, and calls it the most enjoyable part of his working week.