At the rear, the Vauxhall brand name is spelled out and illuminated as part of the slim wraparound light bar, with Grandland embossed at the bottom of the boot lid, rather than written out in chrome.
Buyers can choose from 19in and 20in alloy wheels.
Inside, the Grandland ditches Vauxhall’s Pure Panel digital interface for a slimmer 10in driver’s display and a separate 16in infotainment touchscreen, which can receive over-the-air software updates and is equipped with ChatGPT artificial intelligence.
At its base, Vauxhall has stuck with physical buttons for the radio and air-conditioning, and such controls feature on the steering wheel as well.
The wireless charging pad in the centre console has a semi-transparent casing that lights up red or green according to your phone’s state of charge.
Due to the Grandland’s larger proportions, there’s 20mm of additional leg room for rear passengers over the previous car.
Q&A: Mark Adams, design vice-president, Vauxhall
What’s your attitude to tracing heritage?
“I always say you should have half an eye on your heritage, be proud of your heritage. But I don’t want to overuse it. I’m not a great fan of [heritage design] for our brand. I want to really make us do things that are progressive and modern and not to not try too hard either.”
How can we expect your interiors to evolve in future?
“In [the Grandland], we’ve de-emphasised cluster. With the Astra, we have [the] Pure Panel, but for the future, we’re not saying Pure Panel, we’re talking about pure experience. So it’s connected, but Pure Panel was more hardware-related.”
So can we expect to see you go for a more minimalist approach?
“That’s definitely more in the direction that we’re heading. We want people to get into a Vauxhall in the coming years, and it may be a different interior, it may be a different car, but it’s familiar – but not in a boring way, in an easy way.”
