Back in October, Opel-Vauxhall proved not only the capability, but the reliability of its Astra CDTI diesel by driving it at full throttle for 24 hours straight around the high-speed bowl at the General Motors Millbrook Proving Ground, achieving an average speed of 125 mph over the course of 24 hours.
The team of nine journalists and three specialists from Vauxhall attempted to break 12 world records and six UK records over the course of the 4,800 km-long journey, including the extremely well-known and highly acclaimed “world record for diesel passenger cars in the FIA’s 1600-2000cc forced-induction diesel production car class.”
One of the lucky journalists invited along to drive a leg of the run was Autocar’s road test editor Matt Stiles, who said the Astra “maintains a cruise in sixth gear at 130 (mph) unbelievably easily.” Not that such a statistic matters to the average diesel Astra customer.
Vauxhall is still awaiting the results of the record from the FIA, but in the meantime you can check out Vauxhall/Opels account of the 24-hour run in the video below.
Comment
Good job journalists, for going through all that. Now let’s have a 100,000 miles @ 100 MPH test and see what the car is made of.