| First Drive | Edinburgh, Scotland | 2011 Vauxhall Antara |

This is the new Vauxhall Antara. Really. It has changes including a new grille, a 'refreshed' interior, a different suspension setup and a whole new engine. Vauxhall reckons those updates are going to significantly improve the car's sales, hoping to shift 3,000 in Europe during its first full year. To give that some context, Vauxhall sold around 4,000 Astras in January in the UK alone. The Antara is pretty niche, then.

In the Metal

There's a heft to the Vauxhall Antara that makes it feel bigger than the average crossover, which means it's difficult to categorise properly. It's bigger than a Nissan Qashqai or Skoda Yeti, but doesn't feel like a balls-out 4x4 in the Nissan X-Trail mould.

The advantage of this bulk compared to the aforementioned crossovers is space - front or back, the Antara has masses of it. The glove box, centre console bin and boot are all huge. We're not sure where the cabin update budget has gone, though, because this still looks like a previous generation Astra. A big fat one. Quality isn't bad, and nor is the driving position, but it's about as cutting edge as an Amstrad Em@iler. That's exacerbated by the £1,100 optional satnav, which is positively antiquated: counter-intuitive and with worse graphics than the old opening credits for series one of Byker Grove. (Have a look on YouTube.)

What you get for your Money

It's £19,995 for an Exclusiv (Vauxhall's own word for 'base') version of the Antara with a 161bhp diesel engine, a six-speed manual gearbox and front-wheel drive. The range is bookended by a 181bhp diesel with four-wheel drive and an automatic transmission in SE spec, which will cost close to £29,000 if you add satellite navigation and metallic paint. Equipment levels are decent in general though, with all cars getting air conditioning, alloy wheels and electric windows all the way round. (You laugh, but wind-up windows still happen in some Vauxhall Insignias).

Driving it

Nothing stands out about the driving experience of the Vauxhall Antara, which is exactly its problem. The new engine, a 2.2-litre diesel tuned to either 161- or 181bhp, is its best feature because it's pretty quiet and a lot punchier than the performance stats allude to (0-60mph in 9.9 and 9.6 seconds respectively).

The revised suspension is set up to prevent the car wobbling around to the same extent most big 4x4s do, yet Vauxhall has resisted trying to make the Antara handle 'sportily' by tightening the suspension and over-sensitising the steering.

For that reason it largely deals well with potholes and speed humps, even though it feels well out of its comfort zone in the city due to a combination of its sheer heft and sailboat-like steering response. It's mundanely comfortable, although we found it impossible to change from first to second gear smoothly in the manual. (And before you write in and challenge our clutch modulation skills, know that we weren't alone in having this difficulty.)

Worth Noting

The 2.2-litre CDTi diesel engine in the Antara may be new, but Vauxhall has failed to make it cutting edge in terms of CO₂ emissions and economy. The 161bhp version in the front-wheel drive car achieves 44.8mpg and 167g/km. Shave a couple of mpg off that for the 181bhp unit, and about six more if it's attached to an automatic gearbox. With that, the dirtiest combination, your Antara will emit 205g/km of CO₂, meaning you'll fork out £550 in first year VED.

Summary

The Vauxhall Antara doesn't drop any major howlers, but it's just so... Really. Unless you must have the space, or are being offered an incredibly cheap deal, we can't think of a reason to buy one ahead of a Land Rover Freelander, Qashqai, Yeti, Ford Kuga, or VW Tiguan. Plus the Koreans (Kia Sorento, Hyundai ix35) do virtually the same thing cheaper. It's a car that, ultimately, it is difficult to muster up any sort of enthusiasm for.