Vauxhall Astra £11,765 - £22,845

high-spec Astra with the new 1.4-litre turbo petrol engine, and the first impression is how well the thing rides. It's a bigger car than the previous generation, having grown by 17cm in length and 7cm in wheelbase, yet it tackles motorways like a larger car, floating serenely over dodgy Liverpudlian tarmac, delicately smoothing bumps without ever feeling disconnected.

Unlike the Golf and Focus, Vauxhall chose not to adopt multi-link rear suspension on the Astra, instead using a development of the last car's torsion beam set-up, but with a new Watt's linkage - a pair of horizontal supports connected by a short vertical bar - to reign in the lateral movement of the twist axle, a novel arrangement patented by GM. Vauxhall claims this wasn't a cost-cutting measure: it would actually have been cheaper to adopt the multi-link set-up from the Insignia, apparently. This design, they say, is more space efficient, lighter and adjustable - UK cars have been uniquely calibrated for our uniquely crap roads - while offering a better balance of comfort and handling. The aluminium front suspension borrows heavily from the Insignia.