Evacuate The Audi? Cascada Is Here

In fairness to the boys and girls in Luton, Vauxhall's new drop-top doesn’t actually go on sale until March, so you’ve plenty of time to save up the Christmas money and avoid buying presents if you fancy one – you'll need £24,000 or thereabouts.

Vauxhall is really, really pushing the ‘This Is A Posh Premium Car’ angle with its new soft top. Spot the larger-than-Astra, chromed front grille? Bit Audi, isn’t it. As are the LED taillights, and the fact that Vauxhall actually calls this car ‘Audi A5-sized’. That means you can just about get four people under the soft-top roof, which’ll hide away in the boot at up to 19mph if you’re looking for an on-the go sun tan.

So, it’s got Audi-style size, an Audi-style grille and Audi-style lights. Inside the button grenade has gone off – there’s millions, and it’s all trimmed in grey and chromed plastic. Cor, that’s nice. Bit erm, Audi though. The seats are leather and heated and ventilated, and the steering wheel warms up. Nice original idea for a convertible, that, expect Audi’s being doing it for years. On the A5.

You may have sensed there’s a ‘but’ coming, and like Beyonce entering the room, it's a big one; the name.

Audi named its car, sensibly, neatly, and boringly. The A5. It’s a size of paper. It looks like an assessment test score you might get for a spelling test.

Now Vauxhall has been smoking something pretty special in its name seminas lately. There’s been the Mokka mini-SUV (not a coffee maker) and the rather trendy but terribly christened Adam. No offence to any of y’all called Adam, the name is fine. The first bloke on Earth was called Adam, which seems a pretty ringing endorsement. But the Vauxhall bods have gone and done it again. Their new cabriolet is called... Cascada.

Now, to people of a certain age, i.e. ‘old’, that won’t mean a damn thing. But to the rest of us, Cascada is a dance-pop act from about five years ago, that did battle with Basshunter and DJ Sammy before David Guetta kicked them all into touch by pretty much owning the entire dance chart.

We can’t help thinking that a tan-leather Vauxhall drop-top is only going to be driven by a blonde poser-type, perhaps with her own spray on tan to match the seats, cruising along doing her make-up in the mirror with a turbocharged beat on the stereo to bop along to. Can’t think where we’ve got that idea from though. Nope, I’m stumped...