Vauxhall is the only manufacturer to have competed consistently in the British Touring Car Championship for the past ten years. Back in 1995, the works racing Cavaliers produced something in the order of 300bhp, which was twice the output of the company's most powerful Astra. Today, this 100% discrepancy has been reduced almost to zero, and while this is partly due to engine restrictions in the BTCC it is also a good demonstration of how far the hot hatch concept has come.The beefiest Astra currently available is the VXR, whose two-litre turbocharged engine has a maximum power output of 237bhp. This is a startling figure, but if anything Vauxhall prefers to emphasise a different one, namely the list price of £18,995. Although it is the work of a moment to send the cost rocketing beyond £23,000 - the leather pack, electronic climate control, continuous damping control, adapative forward lighting, 19" wheels and the top-spec audio/satnav system will do the job easily, and there are more options beyond those - Vauxhall is nevertheless largely justified in claiming that the VXR represents a performance bargain.In order to cope adequately with all the power, it would seem advisable for Vauxhall (and Lotus, which was involved in the development) to strip the Astra to its bare bones and start again. The relatively low price suggests that this has not happened, and there's reason to believe that the VXR is simply a further tweaked version of the already rapid 197bhp SRi.There are pros and cons to this. The pros first: in slow driving - and really, what use is a fast road car if it can't also be driven slowly? - the VXR is a gentle beast. Its ride quality is impressively good considering the 40-series tyre fitted to the standard 18" wheels. As you inch forward in the queue for the traffic lights, furthermore, there is little to suggest that anything special lies under the bonnet. You probably wouldn't want to pretend to your passengers that your VXR was really just a standard 1.6 with a fancy bodykit, but the option is there.Send the throttle pedal towards the carpet, though, and a whole new ballgame develops. Unleashed, the VXR is manically fast. In the context of a turbocharged road car, its engine is a screamer, grabbing extra reserves at a fantastic rate as you make it spin beyond 4000rpm and developing the full 237bhp quota up at 5600rpm.There has been a lot of media excitement about the VXR, and I think that's due mostly to the impressions gained when excitable writers have first experienced this uninhibited behaviour. But the cheap thrill wears off quickly once you realise that the rest of the car doesn't have the resources to convert all the engine has to offer into a consistently useful part of the driving experience. For most of the time, the surplus is taken up either by the traction control or by the increasingly harrassed driver.These are the cons arising from the VXR being more of a road car that's being drinking too much espresso and less of a track car that has been tamed for highway use. Despite all the chassis work, there is still quite a lot of body roll, and the exact amount of lean achieved has a big effect on just what will happen if you introduce a lot of power. You might get away with it and feel a slight tug as the traction control kicks in, or you might briefly lose track of where the car has decided to go next.Since motoring safety is largely a combination of the driver's abilities and those of the car, it's possible to imagine situations in which the VXR could be taken into dangerous territory. I'm not going to say that the car is itself dangerous, because there is a very acceptable alternative, and that is to make the best of what you have.On challenging roads, the VXR is at its most rewarding when you use a higher gear and about half the throttle pedal travel you think you need for going quickly, and venture towards the business end of the revcounter only when the car is pointing in a dead straight line along a flat, well-surfaced road. Do this - in other words forget about the 237bhp until you can absolutely get away with it - and the VXR becomes a sharp-handling car which, with no fuss at all, will still get from point to point at a rate which will make you the envy of most boy racers.And that's fine, in a way. Personally, I like cars which can make full use of their power, and most of the time the VXR simply can't do that. A truly capable 237bhp Astra is certainly possible, but the VXR isn't it. Engine 1998c, 4 cylinders Power 237bhp Fuel/CO2 30.4mpg / 223g/km Acceleration 0-60mph: 6.2 seconds Top speed 152mph Price £18,995 Details correct at publication date
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