Henrietta Thompson, Torque Astra's resident design expert, gives us her first thought's on the all new Astra.

Luton Parkway. Until now I thought of the place only as a pretty good place to fly away from thanks to its main tourist attraction: the airport. A quick trip across the road, however, and I discovered it’s also home to Vauxhall HQ – where the super-knowledgeable product manager Adam Collins would give me a comprehensive design tour of the new Astra. It’s amazing what you can find in the most unexpected places…

For example – the first surprise of many – the new Vauxhall Astra has some pretty fierce looking eagle-eye headlamps. Followed through with a low, wide stance, this is a car that could perhaps best be described (as Adam in fact did) as ‘purposeful’.

I thought I’d start this blog with a ‘say what you see’ style appraisal of the design features on and in the car. Air hostess stylee, we went through the motions at the front, the sides, the rear and the interior….