Vauxhall Frontera review

Vauxhall’s gone big on minimalism in here, which gives it a clean, business-like look, but there’s a fair amount of cheap feeling hard plastics too. It gets Vauxhall’s new flat bottomed steering wheel, which is as hard as a stick of rock but a nice size, a clean looking dashboard complete with handy rubber-lined storage shelf, and an adjustable strap around the centre console to store laptops, iPads and suchlike, though we’re not sure how often or why you’d actually want to do so.

If you go for the upper spec you get the firm’s Intelli-Seats up front that feature a unique cushion design incorporating a slot that relieves pressure on the tailbone. Behind the front seats there’s room for two adults to sit comfortably, though three would be a squeeze. You might just manage if it’s just the kids back there. Alternatively there’s the £550 seven-seat option, though we’re yet to try this and based on the five-seater it's seemingly going to be a very tight squeeze.

By minimalist, you mean button free, presumably?

Yes and no. All variants get the same dual 10in screen setup, one for the driver, one to control the infotainment and whatnot. It all works well enough but both screens feel quite basic and limited, and it’s certainly not as flashy a setup as you find in some rivals. Not necessarily a bad thing for any technophobes out there…

And there is some good news here too, because as you can see from the picture above, the Frontera gets a dedicated climate control panel too, which couldn’t be more simple to use. A comfort pack introduces the likes of heated steering wheel and seats, which again you can switch on and off using additional buttons on the same panel, while all versions get two USB-C ports front and rear (seven-seaters get an additional one in the back), wireless smartphone mirroring and voice recognition.

Plus, there are also physical buttons on the steering wheel, and a few more off to the side that allow you to quickly switch off any annoying ADAS features. Handy.

Sounds practical enough at least. Will I fit my shopping in?

There’s room for 450 litres of luggage with the rear seats up, fold them down and this extends to 1,600 litres. A fact that Vauxhall is very proud of, waxing lyrical that this is a larger boot capacity than an Astra Electric Sports Tourer.

Additional versatility is provided by the split level boot floor, which when raised lies flat with the boot lip, or drop it for maximum capacity, and the 60:40 split folding rear seats. Nothing out of the ordinary there, mind.