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Vauxhall Meriva MPV revealed

The butterfly wings of its new Meriva MPV open to reveal a clever cabin highlighted by space and light.  Though the Meriva, built on the European Astra platform and so cursed as unlikely to come to Australia, seats only five, it has a versatile interior that includes a forward-placed instrument panel, side and forward sliding rear seats and a central, movable centre console known as FlexRail.

This system sits between the front seats on rails, taking up space where the gearshift - now higher on the dashboard - and park brake - now an electric button - once claimed space.  Vauxhall said it provides convenient and adaptable storage for everyday items, from handbags and colouring books to iPods and sunglasses.

Flexible seating gives the baby wagon a range of cabin configurations without having to remove any seats, changing from two to five. Both its outer rear seats can be moved fore and aft individually, and also slide inwards to provide more shoulder width and leg room. Additionally, rear seat backs can be fully lowered without having to remove their head restraints.

The butterfly (or suicide doors) are opposite hinged to improve entry and egress to the ear, though the central B-pillar remains. The only similar system on mass-produced cars is the Mazda RX-8.  The Meriva debuts at the Geneva motor show in March.

Neil Dowling
Contributing Journalist
GoAutoMedia Cars have been the corner stone to Neil’s passion, beginning at pre-school age, through school but then pushed sideways while he studied accounting. It was rekindled when he started contributing to magazines including Bushdriver and then when he started a motoring section in Perth’s The Western Mail. He was then appointed as a finance writer for the evening Daily News, supplemented by writing its motoring column. He moved to The Sunday Times as finance editor and after a nine-year term, finally drove back into motoring when in 1998 he was asked to rebrand and restyle the newspaper’s motoring section, expanding it over 12 years from a two-page section to a 36-page lift-out. In 2010 he was selected to join News Ltd’s national motoring group Carsguide and covered national and international events, launches, news conferences and Car of the Year awards until November 2014 when he moved into freelancing, working for GoAuto, The West Australian, Western 4WDriver magazine, Bauer Media and as an online content writer for one of Australia’s biggest car groups. He has involved himself in all aspects including motorsport where he has competed in everything from motocross to motorkhanas and rallies including Targa West and the ARC Forest Rally. He loves all facets of the car industry, from design, manufacture, testing, marketing and even business structures and believes cars are one of the few high-volume consumables to combine a very high degree of engineering enlivened with an even higher degree of emotion from its consumers.
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