Toys4RJill

So the Opel Astra wins European Car of the Year over some serious competition. I was listening to Autoblog and they almost couldn't take the win seriously. Anyways, they were happy for the win and now the wonder is if the new Chevy Cruze or the upcoming Buick Verano might have a chance at winning something in North America.

http://www.autoblog.com/2016/03/08/o...r-of-the-year/


The votes are in, the ballots tabulated, and a combined jury of automotive journalists from across Europe have officially named their Car of the Year for 2016. Unfortunately for us, it's not one we can get here at the moment. Geographic availability aside, this year's top prize went to the new Opel Astra.

The C-segment hatchback took a victorious 312 points, edging out a win over the Volvo XC90 and its 294 points. A greater number of panelists nominated the Mazda MX-5 Miata as their favorite, but the combined scores only awarded the Japanese roadster a total of 202 points. That was still enough, however, to edge out the other finalists, including the Audi A4, Jaguar XE, Skoda Superb, and BMW 7 Series.

The Astra is GM's European challenger to the likes of the Volkswagen Golf and Ford Focus. It's marketed as a Vauxhall in the UK, an Opel in continental Europe, a Holden in Australia, and as the Buick Verano Hatch in China. Past versions were also sold as the Saturn Astra here in the United States, but so far this latest version of the model remains out of reach to American customers.

The award is handed out by a combined panel of 58 jurists representing Auto in Italy, Autocar in the UK, Autopista in Spain, Autovisie in the Netherlands, L'Automobile in France, Stern in Germany, and Vibilägare in Sweden.

mmarshall

In China, technically, the Astra is marketed as the Buick Excelle, not Verano....but it is essentially the same car with smaller engines. With the Chinese obsession for Buicks, it has been that country's best-selling vehicle for for the last few years (and, from my own experience, I can see why) The Vauxhall Astras versions marketed in Britain, and the Holden Astras of Australia, of course, have right-hand drive.

The Saturn Astra, when it was imported here, was only marketed in a hatchback design, which limited its sales potential (and IMO help contribute to Saturn's downfall). Its center-dash design and layout had a confusing array of controls and buttons. But, like the (present) Astra generation after it, it was solidly-built, using good materials.

That seems to be a characteristic of every Astra-based product I've ever looked at or owned...heavy, solid, durable construction, a solid unibody frame, solid materials inside, and a general feeling of quality. In the Buick lineup, for example, you can tell the difference between the Opel-based models and those that originated mostly from American platforms.

That heavy, solid construction, of course, does have some downsides, the chief one being fuel-economy, where the EPA numbers do lag significantly behind the competition. The upcoming Astra platform (the one discussed in the thread-title) is said to be significantly lighter than the current one, so it remains to be seen how that will affect fuel economy and other factors associated with weight, such as braking distances, acceleration, stability, handling, sound-insulation, etc...... The current Verano version of the Astra, especially, is heavy (roughly 3400 lbs.) not only because of the solid Opel frame, but also because of the multi-layers of the Buick Quiet-Tuning process that adds a lot more weight. The roof panel alone has five separate layers of insulation, and the windows/doors triple-insulated.

An all-new 2017 Verano, based on the new Astra platform, will debut in the U.S. later this year (I'm not sure about Canada, where you are, Jill). Buick does not (yet) have anything concrete on their U.S.-market website yet about it. The all-new 2016 Chevy Cruze is now available in the U.S., but it is more loosely based on the Opel platform than the Verano will be.......which was also the case with the last-generation Cruze.

Wonder if they considered the Fiat 124 Spyder of it?.......which is the same Miata platform and general styling, but with a different, Italian-sourced engine.