Never heard of it? That’s fair enough. Opel is back in UAE after 10 years, and this time around, they want to make an impression.
At the front-line stands the 2013 Opel Insignia OPC. This is Opel’s take on a premium sedan (though also available as a hatchback) and its here to take on rivals like Volkswagen CC and Audi A5 Sportback.
Style
Many manufacturers today bring out performance versions of their cars. These usually fall into two categories. One is the understated sleeper – an ordinary looking car with a secret that lies beneath. And then you have the second category where there is no doubting the capability of what lies under the skin – the extrovert if you will.
The Opel Insignia OPC falls firmly into the latter category.
Each and every person who saw the car was curious to know more about it. The Insignia OPC makes a loud impression and leaves no doubt of its intentions. It looks fantastic, hunkered down on those massive 20 inch alloys, giving it an almost aftermarket look (in a good way). Most people who came across it could not believe that those were the standard rims filling up the blistered arches. The butch appearance is further highlighted with twin satin tipped exhausts that are integrated into the rear bumper and day time running lights that curve at the top of the headlamps. This car makes one heck of a statement as you drive around. It’s almost begging for a fight waiting to take on anyone who dares come across it. At AED 168,000, this car is worth every penny just for the way it looks.
Interior Features and Comfort
Apparently by European standards (and marketing fluff), this is a 'large family sedan.' I would somewhat disagree. Putting things in perspective, it has interiors the size of the current Cadillac CTS. In BMW lingo, it falls somewhere between the 3 Series and 5 Series and yet is decidedly compact in exterior dimensions. While space is not exactly at a premium, it isn’t capacious either. Legroom in front and back is quite adequate though. Opel has made the most of space available with well thought out cubby holes around the car in the form of a centre console, a dash compartment and sizeable cup-holders in the centre console. Even better are the door pockets which are large and can each fit a large water bottle. This may seem trivial, but when you use your car everyday, these small things matter. The steering wheel is chunky and flat-bottomed, a nod to potential performance. This and the seats are covered in leather and that’s about it. Most other surfaces are plastic and not the expensive kind. Even the “black piano wood” trim is made from cheap and hollow feeling plastic.
Slide in and you are held in place by some very expensive looking Recaro seats – another nod to the impression that the car is an aftermarket tuner’s special. While some commented that the seats were a bit wide to really hold you in place, I can assure you that the seats will keep you exactly where you need to be. More on that later.
As good as those Recaro seats are, it seems that the entire budget for interior was blown up on the seats. Everything else feels like it’s out of Opel’s parts bin and let me clarify right away that you are never going to mistake these interiors for an Audi’s.
The Insignia OPC does feature an Infinity sound system that did quite a good impression of bringing the club to our car. Its not as good as some of the other manufacturers, but having said that, it holds its own and does a good job of pouring tunes into your car. As is customary, USB and AUX ports are available along with a CD player. Navigation is also offered, however our test car did not have the maps set up (an error showed a missing SD card to be the culprit) and so we could not determine how detailed these are or how easy to use.
The centre console is extremely cluttered. It seems that Opel took a big fistful of buttons, put glue on one end and threw them across the centre console. It is frightfully complicated to do something as simple as tune the radio to your preferred station (none of the radio buttons will help you - this is done with an additional joystick-like knob down by the gearlever – first requiring a push to pull up a menu, a twist to the right to select manual radio tuning and then a lot of scrolling). In today’s day and age of touch screens and simplistic approaches to multimedia interfaces, Opel’s entire centre console feels archaic, like it’s out of the nineties.
The best part and redeeming aspect of the interior is the boot space, a decent 500 liters which gives it brownie points on everyday practicality.
On the whole however, the interiors leave you feeling wanting. This car costs a not inconsiderable sum of money and you just don’t feel like it could mix with the crowd in this segment.
Safety Features
There are a lot of safety features in here though. To start with, our test car had six airbags. Then there are audible and visual indicators of when you are drifting out of your lane without indicating (a lane keeping assist), a collision warning system (which is a bit of an annoyance as it takes prudence to a whole new level) and parking sensors to ensure you don’t scratch the butch bumpers – front and rear. Impressive. An amusing feature is for the car to recognise the speed limit on certain roads and pop it up on the screen between the speedometer and rev gauge. It also indicates when you have joined or left the highway. That is admittedly a great finishing touch. Among noticeable omissions though, were a reverse camera and blind spot indicators. With cars in much lower segments offering these as standard, the Opel did not feature these even on its option list. Furthermore, this is still a car that is started by twisting a key. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, no push start ignition.
Drive Performance
After those interiors, my enthusiasm was dampened. And my first drive with the car did nothing to change that.
The references to the nineties continue with such significant turbo-lag that I had to double check that this was a car being sold in 2013! The engine does nothing below 3000 RPM after which the turbo spools up and you are pushed down the road. This is then momentarily interrupted as you lurch forward and then back in your seat as the next gear is selected. This has to be the jerkiest gearbox I have driven in a long time. The 6 speed automatic feels like it’s from another era. The car also has a lot of engine intake sound that causes a boom to permeate through the cabin at low revs and this is not helped by relatively high levels of tyre noise (those gorgeous 20 inch alloys do have their downside when wrapped in 255 section Pirellis).
The suspension is firm but is quite resolved – taking the lumps and bumps in the road well without sending too much of a jolt through the cabin. Trundling down the highway, the car feels quite busy revving at 2500rpm. I kept thinking the car had one more gear to change to but it never came. This does leave the cabin a bit loud – something a longer 6th gear or even an additional cog would solve. That being said, we regularly saw 8-10 L/100kms on the highway, fairly decent for such a heavy car with an overall average of about 11-12 L/100kms.
However, this is an OPC model. That stands for Opel Performance Centre and fuel economy isn’t top priority. So we go in search of finding the rowdier side of this Insignia. The Insignia OPC has a 2.8L turbo V6 which has a claimed output of 325bhp and 435Nm mated to a four wheel drive system. This definitely required further exploration.
At the dashtop among the cluster of buttons are 3 important buttons. One marked ‘Sport’, the second ‘OPC’ and the third to switch traction control off. OPC is a pure race mode. It holds a gear, maybe two lower than usual and keeps you well in the power band. However, the gears hold for too long and don’t change up when you are easing up and hence this mode is only ideal for when you’re really pressing on and on public roads, that situation should never arise. Depress ‘Sport’ and you get a nicely judged setting. This causes the car to downshift quicker when the need to accelerate arises. This is important as the turbo-lag low down the rev range means you really won’t get very meaningful forward progress until that turbo spools up. The setting also keeps the suspension supple enough to continue riding well. The car changes gears and even moves into top gear when you cruise.
However, the car just never seems to feel very fast. Flick it into manual, drop a couple of gears, foot to floor and the car surges forward in a nice controlled fashion. You would hope that the equal and opposite reaction to that turbo lag would be a nice shove in the back but it never comes. It could be to do with the hot weather (not ideal for turbos to work under) as despite Opel’s claims of a 0-100kmph time of 6 seconds, the best we managed was a 7.6 seconds.
All this should mean the car is terrible, right? Wrong!
Handling
Show the Insignia OPC some corners and this car comes to life. Despite a kerb weight of just over 1,800kgs, the car handles shockingly well to the extent of being quite a bit of fun.
While most four wheel drive cars err on the side of caution and slip into understeer that saps the joy out of driving, the Insignia proved to be extremely playful under throttle nicely adjusting its line and allowing you to power through corners. And each time, that four wheel drive system would grip and grip and grip and vehemently stay on line up to the point where you slingshot out of the corner. This just makes you instil more and more confidence in the OPC and you keep pushing harder through every corner. Right up until the point you overcook it a bit, but even then, lift off the throttle and the car goes into a gradual and easy to control four wheel drift.
In comparison to the Audi S6 we had tested which also had four wheel drive but tonnes more power, the Insignia OPC was a revelation in terms of handling. The same corner where the Audi S6 would go into terminal understeer at 100kmph had the Insignia OPC ploughing through at just over 110kmph shuffling its power front to back without letting either end go. High speed sweepers are taken at grossly illegal speeds as the cars wide tyres and four wheel drive system provide supreme stability and confidence to continuously push on.
The steering is not very feelsome and yet you always know what is happening at the front wheels. The brakes too are not progressive but the Brembos fitted to this car are extremely strong and bring all that mass to an immediate halt when required to. The car also sounds good. It has an old fashioned turbo whistle as you drive along and in enclosed car parks, sounds almost like it has a big ‘ol blow off value – right out of Fast and Furious. It’s very amusing and very evocative.
I did still constantly wish it had more power. I reckon the car would feel completely different in winter, but as per my time testing the car, I found myself constantly hoping for another dollop of power and torque. The lack of, though, did allow me to keep my foot pinned to the floor longer and on more occasions. Wringing the car out was an absolute joy – the car never feeling too precious or dainty to get down and dirty. You could really take liberties with it and revel in a surprisingly capable chassis. If we all lived on a race track, we’d be buzzing about in Caterhams or Ariel Atoms. The reality is that you require something to do the daily running about well and then can see red (quite literally as the dials light up in red if you switch to OPC mode) on the odd occasion you come across an empty freeway off/on-ramp or twisty bit of road. It’s playful, approachable at its limits, benign when overcooked and has just enough oomph to leave a grin on your face at the end of most journeys.
Verdict
The motoring industry is filled with evocative acronyms – AMG, M, RS, GT, etc. OPC doesn’t sound very enticing – more like a Chinese vacuum cleaner. However, if the Insignia OPC is anything to go by, you can be rest assured that this moniker is going to be on a lot of lips in the region very soon.
Its engine and gearbox did disappoint a bit as did the interiors. But the car has a stance matched by nothing else in this segment and is undeniably gifted in the handling department. It leaves you grinning like a maniac when you know you’ve been going faster than you should and cornering at speeds you really shouldn’t be.
Opel currently offers 5 years/150,000kms free service and 5 years warranty. Haggle hard enough and you can even get the price down to (whisper it) AED 160k. When compared with rivals, that’s pretty good value.
