Body panel gaps are admirably tight, and rightly so, as any irregularity would be apparent given the way the doors are shaped.  The rear too, is rich with detail, with large triangular taillamps, divided into multi-reflectored rectangular sections.  A fold also runs across the trunklid to break up the surface, and topping it all off is the rubber antenna on the roof.  Indeed, when you see an Astra beside you on the road, you can't help but give it an admiring glance, particularly when it's at speed. 

So does the car drive as good as it looks?  We maneuvered our silver test sedan from the AutoWorld parking lot out onto an uphill portion of Quezon Avenue, depressed the accelerator and discovered that it did…nothing.  This wiped the smile off my face.  It was like pushing the gas pedal of a deactivated arcade game.  I actually looked down at the gear lever to make sure it was in "D."  From standstill, the car is unbelievably slow to accelerate. On paper, the Vectra goes from 0-100 km/h in 13.5 seconds. In reality, it feels much slower.  The Opel personnel advised us to engage the autobox's sport mode.  We tried that, but the response was not much better.  We have no doubt that the car is capable of reaching 120km/h+, but the build up to speed is painfully slow.  This would have to be the Astra's biggest flaw.

Is the engine the culprit here?  The Astra is powered by a 1.6 16-valver generating 150 Nm/3600 rpm.  Compare this with the Ford Lynx, which has less torque: 148 Nm/ 4000 rpm.  Now the Astra is just 60 kg heavier than the Ford, yet the acceleration is much slower.   We'd have to conclude that the fault here lies with the automatic transmission.

The four-speed auto gearbox shifts unobtrusively, but the engine-gearbox combination doesn't deliver the instant response that we've come to expect from modern automatics.  You won't notice this if you're just puttering around on village roads, but if you're going to merge onto a highway or overtake a truck, better make sure you have plenty of empty road. 

Another characteristic that makes small cars fun is quick steering.  Unfortunately, the Astra fails to deliver here.  The Astra steering is precise and well-damped, but it's too sluggish to allow the driver any fun in carving up traffic.  This in turn helps to define the Astra's handling characteristics.  There's plenty of grip to had from the chassis, but it's difficult to make quick transitions because of the slow steering and heavily-damped suspension.
The body panels are tight. Even with around 17K on the odometer, the Astra feels like it just walked out of the showroom.
The Astra is awfully slow on acceleration. Put the automatic  it in sport mode, it's still as slow, but now twice as jerky. Think of a dead man using Viagra...do you think it's going to have any effect?
Grip gusto...but there's no feel and the ratio makes it too difficult to make sudden lane changes  or even tight parking space maneuvers.