THE Opel Astra GTC becomes the halo car of the European marque’s debut range in Australia, at least until Opel’s mysterious new convertible comes along.
Endowed with slinky sheetmetal that would make Pininfarina jealous, the GTC sets the three-door Astra well apart from its five-door sibling.
The GTC also rides lower to the ground and on a bigger footprint than the standard Astra, giving it a larger grip on the road.
But with no hot OPC version in the Australian launch line-up and only a pair of middling turbo four-cylinder petrol engines in the armoury, is the GTC the car to take up the cudgels with the benchmark Volkswagen Golf, or just a pretty new thing?

Holden AH Astra SRi Coupe
Released: April 2007
Ended: March 2010
Family Tree: AstraIT MIGHT not have worn the Opel badge like the new Astra, but the last generation Holden three-door Astra was from the same European source.
Back then, the sportiest Astra was powered by a selection of four engines, including the large direct-injected 2.2-litre four-cylinder and a turbocharged 147kW 2.0-litre petrol.
A 1.8-litre petrol “cooking model” and a 1.9-litre diesel were also on offer.
The Astra SRi Coupe was the last hurrah for that nameplate at Holden, which killed it off locally when it switched to the Cruze small car out of South Korea.
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