The Vauxhall Frontera Is Back, And Hopefully Much Better Than The Original

Remember the last time you saw a Vauxhall Frontera? It’s okay, us neither. The original car, which was sold between 1989 and 2004, was a rebadged Isuzu MU and, despite selling decently, it wasn’t very good.

Evidently, Vauxhall feels that enough time has passed and the majority of original Fronteras have succumbed to rot or been turned into farmyard knockarounds, because 20 years after it disappeared, the Frontera is back.

While the original car was rather agricultural and actually reasonably decent off-road, the new car is a small family crossover, because it’s 2024. It's here to replace the brand's current smallest crossover, the slightly outdated and utterly forgettable Crossland.

Clearly, Vauxhall’s set out to do something about that ‘utterly forgettable’ part, because the Frontera is an altogether more design-centric car. There’s rather a lot of Jeep Renegade in its upright, Tonka truck stance and swollen wheel arches and – whisper it – even hints of Land Rover Defender in its contrasting roof. Naturally, it has Vauxhall’s signature ‘Vizor’ blacked-out front end.

Also because it’s 2024, the inside is a screen-fest, with two conjoined 10-inch displays – one for the infotainment, and one in place of the gauge cluster. There are four USB slots and a ventilated wireless charger, as well as plenty of storage areas in which you can put many, many things.

Vauxhall is also very proud of the front seats, which have a patented new feature called ‘Intelli-Seat’. This is, and we quote, “a slot that relieves the pressure on the tailbone”. This is a game-changer – we’re really fed up with the way most cars exert undue pressure on our tailbones.

Because – yes – it’s 2024, the Frontera is available with exclusively electrified powertrains. It’ll launch later this year with both a full electric variant and 48-volt mild hybrid versions. It’s not clear what engines these hybrid versions will have, but the smart money is on some variant of Stellantis’ widely-used 1.2-litre three- or 1.6-litre four-cylinder petrols.

When the Frontera supersedes the Grandland, it’ll mean that Vauxhall will – we think – quietly become the first legacy manufacturer to offer fully electric versions of its entire car lineup.

It should be a vast improvement on its namesake, but will it be enough for us to forget the rubbishness of the original Frontera? Time will tell.