2011 Vauxhall Antara Facelift: More details

2011 Vauxhall Antara Facelift

Vauxhall has nipped and tucked their softroading compact SUV for 2011 – the Vauxhall Antara – with a reworked nose, interior and new engine.

We reported that the 2011 Vauxhall Antara Facelift was on the way back in November when Vauxhall were busy shouting about the better engines and a price drop. Very fair points. And now they’ve sent us details – all nine pages and 4,000 words. Which seems a lot for a nip and tuck.

So we’ve tried to extract the wheat from the chaff; the saliant from the verbosity. But we’ve also posted the 2011 Antara press release, in case you have a spare afternoon. Or you’re struggling to get to sleep.

There’s nothing much wrong with the Vauxhall Antara. It just doesn’t exactly grab you by the short and curlies and shout out. It’s rather bland; almost invisible. And frankly, we’re not sure the 2011 Antara facelift will do much to address that.

But Vauxhall are having a bash, nonetheless, at injecting a little more pizazz in to the Antara for 2011. They’ve had a play with the nose which gets a new grill and new fog lamps. And a crease up the bonnet. And new alloys. All of which Vauxhall assures us gives the 2011 Antara ‘Rugged looks with a hint of Urban Chic.’ Nice.

The interior gets ‘Improved Comfort and Quality’. That manifests itself as an electronic parking brake, new instrument bezels, new panelling and upholstery materials and more adjustable seats. Vauxhall are also keen to point out that they’ve worked the oracle on NVH with a resulting 50% drop in cabin noise. A commendable effort.

On the oily front the Antara gets a new 2.2 litre diesel in two flavours – 163PS with FWD or 4WD and a 184PS with 4WD. The 163PS lump manages 44.8mpg, 167g C02 and 0-60mph in 9.9 seconds. The 184PS 42.8mpg, 175g/km and 0-60mph in 9.6 seconds. Better than before.

Vauxhall also say the chassis has had a tweak with revised setting for the McPherson struts up front and a redesigned multi-link setup at the back. The new speed-related steering rack is said to give better feedback.

All of which is very good and we’re sure it makes the Vauxhall Antara (which is made in Korea and is really a Chevrolet Captiva under the Vauxhall bits – yes, the Antara is a Daewoo) better than it was. And with a starting point of under £20k it will be able to compete with its Korean brethren – the Sportage and ix35. But is it as good?

We rather doubt it.