Words: Daniel Bevis
Photography: Vauxhall / Daniel Bevis
The most rowdy of hot hatches hits 20 this year.
Of all the press cars I’ve driven in my decade-and-a-half or so of motoring journalism, there’s only one in which I’ve made my passenger vomit. And it wasn’t any of the hysterical exotics – it was the Mk5 Astra VXR Nürburgring.
The very same one that you see in the photos here, the white one with the ghosted chequered flag graphics. I’ll spare the blushes of the photographer in question by keeping his name under my hat, as he generally prides himself on his iron stomach; suffice it to say that his constitution let him down that day and the herd of sheep in the field we pulled up alongside all got to see his breakfast. Was I driving particularly offensively? Um, no, I don’t think I was… but that’s really just the VXR vibe. These are not sensitive and touchy-feely cars, they’re antisocial sledgehammers. You wouldn’t take one home to meet your mother, it’d more than likely call her a rude name, gob on her jigsaw puzzle and nick her souvenir teaspoons. And if you try to drive an Astra VXR sensibly, well, it won’t be having any of that.
The VXR badge has, over the years, earned itself a reputation which we can charitably describe as effervescent. Or mischievous. Remember when Vauxhall saw fit to apply the VXR treatment to the Zafira MPV? Every single owner immediately set about driving everywhere at maximum attack, a child strapped into every seat as they terrorised the ring road, dad telling his mates down the pub afterwards that they’d been larging it in ‘the boost bus’. These people didn’t set out to trigger speed cameras or forget where the indicator stalk was, they’d just entered a mystical tuner mindset that’s hard to define.
If all of this isn’t ringing a bell, perhaps a quick potted history is in order. Back in 2003, Vauxhall’s efforts in the British Touring Car Championship, tied in with Triple 8 Race Engineering, campaigned under the banner of VX Racing. And while the BTCC wasn’t quite enjoying the colossal popularity it had through the earlier days of the Super Touring era, there was still a keen ‘win on Sunday, sell on Monday’ justification to the accountants, and by 2004 the team name had been shortened to VXR and glued to the rumps of a couple of showroom models, the Aussie-import Monaro muscle car and the Lotus-twin VX220 sports car. With the halo firmly in place, the badge was then able to trickle down through the range, later applied to the aforementioned Zafira as well as the Vectra, Corsa, Meriva (weirdly), Insignia, and – crucially – the Astra.
Why ‘crucially’? Because among all of the hot Vauxhalls across the generations, none has captured the public’s imagination (and cash) quite like the Astra. Sure, the Nova was a Max Power hero in its various SR, SRi, GTE and GSi guises and the Chevette HSR stalks our dreams like homologation voodoo, but it’s the Astra that took the hot hatch fight to the XR3i and beyond. The Mk1 GTE was as white as a sheet and as dark as your hidden thoughts when you blipped its perky throttle; the Mk2 GTE had a digital dash from a movie and, from 1988, more cams and more valves than a starry-eyed youth could ever dream of; the Mk3 GSi proved that a hot hatch could be (relatively) luxurious; the Mk4 GSi Turbo had a boosted 2.0-litre that was way more engine than we probably deserved, and it surfed the contemporary modding tide by rolling out of the showroom with a massive wing and even more massive rims. With all of this provenance to play with, the scene was set in 2005 to apply the VXR branding to the box-fresh Mk5 Astra.
Oh, and all of the ingredients just coalesced magnificently. Fast Astras had been an established trope for generations, the VXR brand was front-of-mind among keen petrolheads, and the spec sheet for the Astra VXR was absolutely delicious. The turbocharged 2.0-litre Z20LEH engine was shoved into the three-door shell, offering up a faintly ludicrous 236bhp, with no LSD to ensure that scrabbly torque-steer became not something to be derided but in fact a badge of honour. This was, from the outset, a hairy machine, and the act of wrestling with it to keep it in a straight line formed a key part of its unhinged character. Sure, you could buy a scalpel-sharp hot hatch from VW that scythed through apices with clinical precision, but it’s not any fun if it’s easy, is it?
As well as the hyperactive and deliberately tricky performance, there was no mistaking the visual impact. If you had a VXR, you wanted everyone to know about it, and Vauxhall was keenly in tune with this. So this raucous little hooligan came with a trapezoidal centre-exit exhaust, a 19″ wheel option, honeycomb grilles with body-colour trim instead of the usual chrome, an aggressively styled front bumper and complementing rear spoiler and sideskirts.
It was all serious business in the cabin too, with chunkily-bolstered Recaros, and rakish aluminium and carbon fibre trims. And the Nürburgring Edition? That wasn’t just a name, the VXR had set a new record for front-wheel-drive hot hatches around the Nordschleife (8m35s if you’re counting), and Vauxhall released this special edition with a shouty Remus exhaust and lightweight alloy wheels. They’re very sought after these days.
All of this naturally led to a sophomore VXR, the GTC of 2012. This Mk6 coupe/hatch upped the spec to near-interstellar levels, with 280bhp on tap, optional forged 20″ wheels, active suspension, Brembo brakes and a Drexler LSD. A ridiculously amped-up evolution of the formula, which spawned a racy coda for the Astra VXR in 2014: the VXR EXTREME concept (their caps, not ours). Derived from the Astra Cup race car that competed in the Nürburgring Endurance Championship, it boasted 300bhp, racer aero, a carbon roof and a rollcage – although it never made production, the regular Astra VXR finally leaving us in 2019. Makes you sick, doesn’t it? But in a wonderful, wonderful way.
Did you ever own-or survive a ride in-an Astra VXR? Share your stories and verdicts in the comments below.
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