DETROIT MOTOR SHOW: Holden confirms Astra sedan

Holden has confirmed it will launch a three-model Astra sedan range in May.

Australia will be the only market in the world where the Korean-built sedan will be called Astra. Elsewhere, it will be known as the Cruze.

The news was officially confirmed at the Detroit motor show by Holden managing director Mark Bernhard and his General Motors boss Stefan Jacoby at the Detroit motor show overnight.

The Cruze name has been retired in Australia after being applied to a hatch and sedan sold here since 2009 and built here from 2011 to October 2016.

Holden has already replaced the Cruze hatch with the latest generation Opel-developed Astra hatch, which sells alongside the older three-door Astra coupe here.

While the hatch is pitched as a sporty drive, Holden intends to market the sedan as more comfort-oriented choice for buyers in Australia’s single biggest new passenger vehicle sales segment.

The hatch has attracted criticism for the pricing the three-model line-up has been pitched at, but Holden sales and marketing director Peter Keley confirmed the Astra sedan will undercut the entry-level R hatch’s $21,990 price before on-road costs.

“Astra sedan will be priced a little bit lower than the Astra hatch,” said Keley at an Astra sedan media briefing in December. “That’s not a reflection of quality of the vehicle or stripping equipment out. It is positioned to win on that side of the market.”

All three Astra models, designated LS, LT and LTZ, will be powered by the same 110kW 1.4-litre direct-injection turbo-petrol engine used by the Astra hatch. It produces 245Nm peak torque when mated with a six-speed manual and 240Nm when a six-speed automatic is optioned.

The 1.6-litre engine offered with the Astra hatch won’t be available with the sedan.

Standard safety features across the range will include six airbags, a reversing camera, rear park assist, two Isofix child seat attachment points, three child restraint anchors and automatic locking rear seatbelts.

Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) is not available here or overseas, while the airbag count is down on the Chevrolet Cruze. Holden says the latter issue relates to the lack of mandatory seatbelt laws in some US states.

The LT and LTZ models will be fitted with the Holden Eye forward-facing camera that brings with it front park assist, side blind spot alert, rain-sensing wipers, lane keep assist, forward collision alert and forward distance indicator. Self-park assist will also be included.

Holden is forecasting a five-star ANCAP safety result for the Astra sedan.

Detailed model-by-model equipment levels aren’t being announced yet, except to confirm the Astra sedan will come with a 7.0- or 8.0-inch touch-screen. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto will be part of the package.

While GM Design in Melbourne has made some minor changes to the exterior to localise the Astra with a unique grille, Holden Engineering has had more work to do, retuning the steering, dampers and chassis control such as ESC, torque vectoring and trailer sway control and recalibrating the automatic transmission.

That’s more input that Holden had into the Astra hatch, even though the two cars share fundamentally the same new D2 architecture.

But while the hatch gets a sports suspension tune, the sedan has a longer wheelbase and misses out on Watt’s link control for its torsion beam rear axle.

“It was key for us the hatch and sedan drive similarly, albeit with a slightly different flavour,” explained Holden vehicle development boss Jeremy Tassone. “Astra has a real trademark as far as its handling, its capabilities on-road and its refinement and we wanted to hang on to that.

“But the sedan customer is s slightly different customer who enjoys a bit more comfort in their car and that was the challenge.

“With that in mind we were able to full local and regional chassis tune on the sedan.”

The Australian suspension tune, developed at the Lang Lang proving ground near Melbourne, has now been adopted for the Cruze sedan across the General Motors International region.

Keley said the greatest debate within Holden had been whether to hold on to the Cruze name or unify the small car line-up under the Astra banner.

“We considered two key issues; firstly, does the sedan have the DNA credentials to be called an Astra? Yes, it does. It comes off the D2 platform, it’s engineered by the same team, common powertrain and common components. It will drive like an Astra should drive.”

He said the other factor was evidence in the marketplace that brands that sold two models in the small car segment, such as Hyundai with the i30 and the Elantra and Volkswagen with the Golf and Jetta, tended to focus on one model to the detriment of the other.

“So the question we asked ourselves was if companies as large with the resources of Hyundai and VW can’t make two nameplates work and maximise their results in the marketplace, at the end of the day what makes us smarter?

“So a single effort is what we believe is needed to succeed.”

The presence of the Astra nameplate in the Australian market since 1984 also swung Holden away from Cruze, Keley said.

“That’s nameplate recognition money can’t buy.”