Chevrolet captiva

So claims the marketing campaign for Chevrolet’s Captiva, which is built on the same production line in Korea as the Vauxhall Antara. Chevrolet as a brand is beginning to work quite well in the UK, crafting itself a niche for well made, good-value-for-money products that have more than a whiff of originality to their styling.

The Captiva was designed entirely in-house at GM Korea’s Design Centre in Incheon, and the team was led by 35-year-old American Max Wolf. It first saw the light of day as the S3X concept and was unveiled at the 2004 Paris motor show. Since then, however, the car’s styling has been refined at various GM studios around the world, including the Opel HQ at Russelsheim in Germany. That’s where the process to turn a Captiva into an Antara visually was perfected.The Captiva might not entirely hit the target when it comes to VFM. The top-of-the-range LTZ 2.2-litre diesel auto, for example, is right at the limits of where a conventionally powered (ie non-Volt) Chevrolet can go on price, at over £30k. But it’s certainly good looking.

DESIGN

In design terms the Captiva is big news for GM, especially in Europe, where the compact SUV market is lucrative. When the Korean-built big brother of the Vauxhall Antara was launched in Europe in 2006, the soft-roader spearheaded Chevrolet’s “new era of design, combining the ruggedness of an SUV with the stylishness of a mid-size station wagon”.

The lines are clean and rugged enough to look imposing but not as heavy-handed as they are in one or two of the Captiva’s less good-looking competitors, the Hyundai Santa Fe and Nissan X-Trail.

A mid-life refresh in 2011 introduced a bolder face, with a re-shaped and sharply sculptured bonnet, a new larger grille, prism-style headlamps and integrated LED turn signals on the outside rearview mirrors.

On the road the Captiva looks fresh, muscular and compact for a seven-seat, four-wheel-drive soft-roader.

If you consider how much more road space vehicles such as the Audi Q7 and Range Rover occupy (and neither offers notably more room inside), you get a clear idea of how well packaged the Captiva is.

INTERIOR

The cabin of the Captiva is very much its engine room, so to speak, and although there are some neat individual design touches, it’s nowhere near as appealing inside as its key rival, the Free lander. Where the Land Rover feels like a genuinely class act inside, there’s a touch of blandness to the Chevrolet’s cabin.

On the lesser models Chevrolet will get away with this, but on the top-spec LTX it’s harder to forgive. The main culprits are the rather flat and featureless front seats, the low-rent plastics used to trim the dashboard and centre console, the plain styling of its instrument cluster and the size of the boot, which is close to hopeless – 85 litres – when the two rearmost seats are in use.

On the plus side, there’s acres of space in the rear seats proper; two six-footers can easily sit in front of and behind one another. Storage space has also been reasonably well accounted for with a huge glove box, deep door bins, high-quality cup holders (front and rear) and an equally vast centre console cubby.

Overall, however, the Captiva fails to exude anything like the same sense of quality inside as the Freelander.

Fair enough, it does have the extra pair of occasional rear seats, which appear from beneath the boot floor in a similar style to those of the Vauxhall Zafira and which have Isofix attachments for child seats.

What’s more, the goodie count is high for the money, with items such as cruise control, leather seats, 18in wheels and climate control all appearing as standard. But the Captiva’s extra kit count fails to compensate for its bargain-basement personality against high-grade rivals.