VAUXHALL ZAFIRA 1.8i Elegance 5dr (1999)

Genius seats but dull interior, a good people-carrier

Considering this is quite a good size people carrier, I thought the performance was really very good. It had a decent run to 60 and when you weren't packed out with a full compliment, you could certainly push on at a decent rate with the 1.8. What we really liked about the Zafira, is it's capable of being a long distance cruiser as well as being more than comfortable to potter around town in.

The party trick has to be the Flex 7 seating arrangement. The genius behind these was that if you needed extra luggage space in the boot, the two rearmost seats imply fold into the floor, there is no trying to find space in the garage to keep them, they simply fold away and they do so very easily indeed. The middle bench is equally clever folding in all manner of directions in order to maximise legroom for your rear occupants.

We like the genius of the seats and there is plenty of room throughout for all of the passengers although the rearmost seats are probably best left for children. The one thing that we think really lets this car down is the interior design which is bland to say the least and we eventually got bored of looking at it and now run the new Mervia.

Running costs on the Zafira were reasonable from what I can remember, the mpg was to be expected for this class and the insurance and road tax never broke the bank.