The new Top Gear is doing away with the wheels used by Clarkson and co for their “Star in a Reasonably Priced Car” section.
Going up for auction, then, is a five-door Astra in Tech Line trim, finished in Power Red and equipped with a 1.6-liter petrol engine delivering 115 HP. It rides on 17-inch 10-spoke alloy wheels and it packs a sat-nav with 7-inch color monitor, USB with iPod control, Bluetooth, radio with six premium speakers, and 3-spoke, leather-wrapped steering wheel.
Despite looking all ready for the streets and with its odometer indicating only 2,908 miles (4,680 km), the Astra “is not type-approved and should not be driven on the road“, as the ad posted on eBay writes. There’s a good reason for that, as the airbags were disabled in order to install a roll-cage. The vendor explains that converting it back “would incur significant cost” and the Vauxhall Technical Team will work with the winning bidder to explain how the vehicle was adapted.
For show reasons, Top Gear used more units of the Astra, as producers always had a backup car ready in case the one used broke down. These came in both manual and automatic gearbox versions. Moreover, this is actually the second “Reasonably Priced Car” auctioned, as the first one went under the hammer in late December and after 67 bids, it was sold for £17,800 ($25,195).
Proceeds from this auction will support BEN, which helps unemployed automotive industry workers. The bid, at the time of writing, was £8,000 ($11,325).
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