Vauxhall Insignia Sports Tourer: ‘An easy-to-live-with workhorse’ | Martin Love

You may want sexy, but when it comes to everyday life you'll find dependable is far better in the long run

Vauxhall Insignia Sports Tourer
Price 21,945
0-62mph 9.6 seconds
Top speed 131mph
MPG 49
CO2 121g/km
Eco score a...a...a...a...a

"What's the best car you've driven?" is a very different question to "What's the car that would be best for you?" I often get asked the former. My answers range from a 1956 Jaguar D-Type and the first Land Rover Defender, with its iconic number plate HUE 166, to the futuristic VW XL1 that's so aerodynamic it has a fuel range six times that of a Golf. But I rarely get asked the latter. Matters of reliability, load space, comfort, safety, wipeable surfaces and nonslip storage caddies aren't nearly so sexy. And yet these are the factors that will determine the car we buy, drive and live with. Chuntering past a showroom-fresh Porsche stranded on the hard shoulder is the actual definition of schadenfreude.