Alternative review of Chevrolet Lacetti Saloon

The prospect of spending a week with a Chevrolet Lacetti Saloon didn't fill me with great anticipation. Visions of great swathes of elephant grey plastic and naff velour seating swam into view. What's more I had a few social events to attend and to be honest, I would have preferred something a little more chi-chi. Still, I was pleasantly surprised when the Lacetti Saloon did arrive. I'll be the first to admit it's no Audi A8 lookalike, but it's cleanly styled with a nicely aggressive wedge shape and even looked respectable inside. Arriving at a notoriously snobby friend's house, she didn't even order it off her driveway. Things were looking up.

At 4500mm long and 1725mm wide, the Lacetti Saloon is a fair bit larger than you might expect a £12,000 four-door to be, although still someway shy of being truly Mondeo-sized. Chevrolet has been clever in the packaging department, though; the long 2600mm wheelbase improving all-round interior space and giving the Lacetti Saloon decent rear legroom. Shoulder width for three across the back is a bit tight due to the car's inherent narrowness, the flipside of which is that the Lacetti Saloon is easy to thread through gaps that would have a Vectra driver slamming on the brakes.

Lacetti Saloons for the British market are fitted with a 1.8-litre 122bhp petrol engine. The lack of a diesel option is a bit of an Achilles heel although apparently Chevrolet have one in the pipeline. The suspension has been set up in tune with European requirements. Heavily disguised test 'mules' bashed the UK's highways and byways for thousands of miles in order to optimise the damper, spring, bush and anti-roll bar settings as well as the steering feel. The UK set up is more suitable for high-speed motorway driving as well and body roll has been reduced when cornering. The power steering system has, as a result, been carefully thought out with a tough torsion bar and a beefier pump tuned to give more feedback. There's also firm damping to cut out bounce, stiffer springs and a bigger gauge anti-roll bar. Tyres were also an integral part of the equation and the Lacetti Saloon's tyres feature a stiff sidewall to complement the sporty-ish suspension. With over 120bhp on tap, the 1.8-litre Lacetti Saloon I tried feels surprisingly zippy but you will have to work the throttle hard as the 16-valve engine thrives on revs. Its enthusiastic nature means that you'll enjoy letting it off the leash, and 60mph can be reached in 9.3 seconds - the same as a BMW 318i. A top speed of over 120mph and a combined fuel economy figure of 37.7mpg are also very creditable. A four-speed automatic transmission is available as an £1,000 option. Built by ZF, it's one of the new crop that allow drivers to replicate a manual sequential shift should they so desire. A 'hold' feature enables the driver to lock the car into gear when approaching a series of fun corners, whilst the sport button moves the upshift points nearer the redline. Mind you, the fuel consumption penalty of some 6.7mpg is quite a price to pay for this sort of fun.

Paint me guilty as charged in underestimating the Lacetti Saloon. While I appreciated that Chevrolet's products had made great strides of late, I wasn't expecting this car to be anything like as appealing as it was. It's not quite at the stage where you'd recommend it regardless of price, but given that it does offer simply stonking good value, it's supremely difficult to overlook.