Top Gear kicked off their 20th season in the United Kingdom two weeks ago, and with it came the announcement of a new Reasonably Priced Car. For those that don’t know — but should know — the RPC is what the show’s celebrity guests drive on the Top Gear Test Track, with their results posted on the leader board.
For the last few seasons the Kia Cee’d (cee-apostrophe-dee) was the RPC, which retired the Chevrolet (Daewoo) Lacetti. Now, a British-made Vauxhall Astra replaces the Cee’d.
As was the case when introducing the Cee’d, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May hosted an open track day, inviting loads of famous people, but getting only a few to actually turn out. The car took a fair share of abuse that day, puncturing the front tire, and ripping off the front air dam. But because Top Gear seemly has no ceiling for its budget, the Vauxhall was mended straight away, and continued to be thrashed.
Comments
I’m pretty sure they have 2 cars on hand (i think they have mentioned that with both the Lacetti and Cee’d), in the past they’ve had an automatic too, can’t remember the guest that absolutely needed it though.
While watching, I wasn’t really paying attention to the damaged and then fixed car, but they likely just got the backup car.
Cannot decide if its a good thing or bad thing having the reasonably priced car, btw that picture is an Opel.
Does the picture really matter? It’s the same car, just different badging!
Yes it does matter, it is a British TV show and therefore it should have a Vauxhall badge in the picture – Opel is a meaningless brand in the UK
Please Vauxhall go back into the BTCC again you have been very successful in it, and at one time was untouchable for many seasons.
Same here Jon – remember being at Brands Hatch for many BTTC races
I think they made a good choice.
Astra can go head to head with Ford, Honda, VW and Toyota. Honda is bench marking the next Civic against Astra.
This is BAD! This is Chevy turf. Chevy needs a car like this so to fight Focus globally.
G M brands still overlap. The entire Astra line needs to be sold globally and not be held captive in Europe. I sort of think all the Chevy cars should be dumped, replaced by Opels, to better fight Ford. Let Vauxhall and Opel function like Holden and sell the G M mainstream line up.
On the bright side, Vauxhall seems to have avoided Opel’s slide into the abyss. I bet Vauxhall would have done better than Opel in Australia.