Sounds like a good example, but for general road use and fun, what's your opinion on the best one considering handling, acceleration and not forgetting cost.. .(standard wise, not modded, or not extreme anyway)
Sounds like a good example, but for general road use and fun, what's your opinion on the best one considering handling, acceleration and not forgetting cost.. .(standard wise, not modded, or not extreme anyway)
OK to answer for Standard car vs Standard car
Handling, stay with me here.....I would say the Insignia has the edge in standard form, it has a very advanced chassis, including adaptive damping, torque vectoring and depending on mode, up to 85% rear power transfer
....now most of those the S4 can do too, but not as a standard car without some pretty pricey factory extras.
spec up an S4 with those features and there is nothing in it, but being lighter and smaller I would say on winding or country roads the S4 would be better, although the damping and ride of the insignia even on 20" wheels is better.
acceleration - the S4, probably half to a full second quicker everywhere
cost, mmmm
Insurance and Tax almost identical
mpg - around the same for me 19mpg ish on my normal mix of driving
cost of ownership
Insignia new -34K, I got mine for £25k NEW after 2 years now it is probably worth £15k, so from list price that is pretty damn scary, but as nobody pays list for a Vauxhall £5k per year depreciation is pretty good,
road presence though, not much comes close to the VXR, gets a lot of positive reaction, whereas the S4 slips by unnoticed, even in sprint blue, maybe the A4 shape is a bit safer or familar, and certainly less visually aggressive than the VXR
when it comes to modifying though, the S4 has a much better range of options, there has been a lot of great work done all round the world now to develop this car, and it is a better base for tuning, and being better built and lighter more capable of responding to that
the Insignia, one map existed when I got it, and everything on mine has been developed on mine, so its been a pretty testing 2 years of ownership, a few other companies have done things to the Insignia, but its pretty much mid level tuning only.
overall,
car I most want to own though, the Audi, only had it since december but as said above, the VXR despite all I've done to it, will be sold this year and the S4 will be kept for at least another 12-18 months,