Vauxhall Astra TwinTop 2.0 Turbo

Road Test

Your Say

Vauxhall Astra TwinTop 2.0 Turbo

Test date 11 July 2006 Price as tested £22,190

For Value for money, styling, adaptive front lights, in-gear pace

AgainstScuttle shake, weight gain, tight rear seats, plain cabin

The war is over – and it has been a total rout. The retractable hard-top cabriolet has swept the field of battle, and it won’t be long before the fabric-roofed mid-size convertible is nothing more than a footnote in the automotive history books.

Manufacturers love the fact they need only produce a single model in place of separate coupés and cabriolets. And punters seem to appreciate the combination of everyday snugness with occasional hair-tousling, too.

And the Astra TwinTop is a fine-looking exponent of the genre. The design team has managed to avoid most of the pitfalls inherent in trying to create space for the folded hard-top. This has left the Astra looking far less rump-heavy than the Peugeot 307 CC or Renault Mégane CC.

The shutlines between the three roof panels and those of the rear clamshell are also noticeably tighter than those of the pre-production cars we drove on the original press launch.