CHEVROLET has surprised the motoring and football worlds by becoming Manchester United's official automotive partner and is to become the club's shirt sponsor from the 2014 season onwards.
Now if Manchester United's ego conscious players thought their company car was going to be a Camaro or a Corvette muscle car, manager Sir Alex Ferguson, as you might expect for obvious reasons, put a block on some youthful players getting the glamour models so many are in Cruzes and Captivas. Fergie drives a Volt, footballing legend Sir Bobby Charlton has a seven-seat Captiva and Wayne Rooney has a Camaro – what else.
One unnamed but long serving player recently lost his Captiva as he left it with the keys in it warming up to clear the screen of ice, easy come – easy go I guess.
So my "Drive it like Sir Bobby" experience was with the top of the range Captiva 2.2 VCDi 184 LTZ turbodiesel 4WD seven-seater SUV carrying a very hefty price tag of £31,355.
A lesser powered 2.2-litre 163 LS five-seat version costs a more realistic price of £22,905.
Around 1,500 Captivas were sold in the UK last year, just over half of them to fleet and business users.
The Captiva is big in size and specification and it doesn't look too bad for kerb-appeal either.
The main reason to buy will be the very comprehensive level of specification, the seven seats in three rows and the huge interior space for carrying goods, sports and leisure equipment with the seats folded in various combinations.
In seven seat configuration the boot is only 97-litres, with five seats in use this goes up to 465-litres but with the two rows folded down this increases to a spacious 1,577-litres.
The all-wheel drive version I tried performed well in the ice and snow for grip with the electronically controlled system distributing power to the front and rear wheels as needed.
This is no tough off-roader but it will cope with muddy tracks, field car parks or football training ground parking.
On the road the driving dynamics are not the sharpest around and lose out to more modern competitors such as the Honda CR-V, new Mitsubishi Outlander, Toyota RAV4 and the Hyundai Santa Fé, just to name a few.
The handling is slack and the ride on the soft and bouncy side even with the 19-inch wheels. The steering is vague and lacks feel and preciseness during cornering. Hill start assist is now fitted as standard and chassis tweaks in conjunction with the electronic stability control, traction control and brake assist make it an easy if not involving vehicle to drive.
The 2.2-litre four cylinder turbodiesel engine with 184ps feels strong with its 400Nm of torque from 2,00rpm.
Being tall geared for fuel saving this still isn't enough "grunt" at 2,000rpm to provide adequate response to overtake slower traffic without changing down the gears.
Officially this manual transmission version, an auto gearbox is available for an extra £1,550, should return 44mpg in the Combined Cycle and my test version came well under that at 34mpg.
The CO2 emissions are relatively high at 170 g/km so road tax is a costly £275 for the first year and then £195 a year after that.
Company car drivers will be clobbered for 28 per cent Benefit-in-Kind tax.
Insurance costs are high as well with a group 32E rating.
If space and spec are high on your requirements from an SUV the Captiva fits the bill but it is a big bill money wise.
David Miles
