Climb into the rear seats full of anticipation of what the 13mm longer wheelbase has done and you’ll be disappointed. I’m 6ft tall; with the driver’s seat set for my frame, when I sat in the back I could just about fit with a cheese paring of head room and knee room to spare.

The rear seat backs fold 60/40 per cent onto their bases and the two-position boot floor gives an almost flat load bed. The boot space is a healthy 422 litres with the rear seat backs up and 1,339 litres with them down, the PHEV loses the under-boot floor space and has equivalent figures of 352 and 1,268 litres.

On the road

The immediate impression is of a much more natural-feeling car than the Peugeot 308, more like a Ford Focus or a VW Golf. The front-end behaviour suits the steering, with a roll response much more in keeping with the speed of the steering; as a result it feels a lot less frenetic than the 308. 

This is less about Opel’s traditional safety “sneeze factor”, which gives a slower response to the controls at motorway speeds, rather a more measured reaction to the steering. Does this make for a less agile car? The answer is no, but it feels more grown up and gentle. Rest assured if you are planning on attacking a series of bends at speed the Astra is more than up to the task, especially the three-cylinder petrol which is a much lighter car at the front than either its predecessor or the plug-in hybrid.

The ride feels supple with progressive roll resistance, which seems less likely to induce travel sickness in passengers. And the new Astra still tackles sleeping policemen with an uncanny softness, but it tells you more about the road surface than the Peugeot. The ride quality feels firm, but it’s also supple over bumps, even on 18-inch wheels and tyres, although there’s still a fair old report over sharp-edged bumps and potholes. You’d want to think quite hard before ticking the “larger wheels” option on the order form.

Away from comparisons with the sister Peugeot, there’s not quite the rolling-on-greased-bearings feel of the Golf, but it comes close at times. The steering loads up progressively in corners, though it lacks the rapid responses of the Ford Focus. Opel engineers are a deeply conservative bunch, they know what they want, a responsive but safe car, suitable for all conditions, fast and slow, which they’ve achieved –- even if it lacks the superficial appeal of some rivals.

The 1.2-litre engine has a pleasing torque spike at around 4,000rpm, although like most of these turbocharged three-cylinder petrol units it doesn’t much like revving and gets very flat at the top end. The manual gearbox is the one to have as the six gears are well matched, with an almost overgeared top which brings the revs down at motorway speeds.

The eight-speed automatic is an Aisin unit and fine until you actually want it to change down which it is extremely reluctant to do, even hesitating when you prod it into life with the steering wheel paddles. There is of course the drive selector, but all the Sport does is noisily drive around a gear under what you should be in.

In fact, the chassis could take a lot more power and Opel engineers look wistful when I mention this. 

We didn’t get to try the diesel, but the hybrid is quite pleasant if heavy when accelerating. It wafts almost silently along the motorway, but when you come to slow, it fails completely to smooth the retardation of friction braking and battery regeneration, stopping in a series of lurches and bounces like a clown’s car. This is also a fault with the Peugeot, DS and Citroën equivalents and Opel engineers raised their eyebrows when I mentioned it. Driving the more powerful version of this drivetrain in the Peugeot 308 has shown it to have slightly more coherent braking. Let’s hope the same is true of the Astra when it appears later this year.

The Telegraph verdict

Britain’s special relationship with Vauxhall is the mantra, but the truth is more nuanced since many folk don’t get the choice of whether to drive an Astra or not, so that love affair might be a little one-sided. And the British don’t quite have the appreciation of a steadfast, safe and steady car which is so admired in Germany.