Captiva advances into Ford Territory

The Captiva's seating can be reconfigured to suit your needs.

Holden has made a fuss about its considerable Australian input in the new Daewoo-built Captiva sports utility, but there's a local connection as Kiwi as the Ohakune carrot.

Back in the 1980s, young Malaysian Stuart Tee was an engineer at the Ohakune pulp mill, relishing his time in the central North Island town for its fishing opportunities and crazy hunts for wild pigs.

Whenever he had the chance, Tee was off discovering every corner of New Zealand, from surfcasting at Whatipu on Auckland's west coast, to becoming acquainted with the sandflies at Milford Sound. He recalls it was a magic time.

After leaving Ohakune, Tee found his way into the car industry, first with Ford and now with Holden, where he is now project manager responsible for engineering development of Holden's version of Captiva, which goes on sale here in a few weeks with keen pricing and its sights set firmly on the best-selling Ford Territory.

The affable Tee might consider diplomacy if he wants to try something different

His job for the past several years has been to find mutually acceptable compromises between what Holden wanted and what the Korean Daewoo factory offered. Complicating negotiations at times were the conflicting needs of his counterparts in other parts of the GM empire with a stake in this world vehicle.

It took some diplomacy working through all that? "Oh yes," he says. "Oh yes."

But by and large, the effort of Tee and the many other Holden engineers, designers and managers on the Captiva project have paid off, delivering the lion what is potentially a major player in the medium-size SUV market.

It is being introduced with the Australian 169kW (225bhp) 3.2-litre V6 mated to an Aisin five-speed automatic gearbox with optional sequential shifting.

A common-rail diesel is expected early next year, giving the vehicle a major one-up over the slightly larger Ford Territory rival.

The diesel is likely to be the 110kW 16-valve four cylinder with variable geometry turbo that is offered on the European Captiva.

The Captiva comes in three versions, the SX base and higher specified LX and MaXX, a version developed primarily by Opel.

The German company wanted something quite different from the mainstream Captiva sold in Europe under the Chevrolet label.

The SX costs $43,990, the LX $49,990 and the MaXX $50,990.

The MaXX is mechanically similar, although with suspension revisions, is shorter and shares none of its body panels, although there is obvious design synergy with the SX and LX. The interior, particularly the dash, is also considerably changed.

Because of a different exhaust system, MaXX is down 2kW in power, but the 297Nm of torque at 3200 is the same. It is intended to be sportier and more luxurious than the other two.

MaXX is sold only as a leather-trimmed five-seater, but the LX has a third row of seats that are easily reached and reasonably comfortable for adults, although smaller people will be happiest back there.

The third row split-folds to make a useful six-seater with more luggage space. There's little room for cargo when the third row is used, although a roof rack is fitted, rated for 100kg.

The Captiva will pull a 2000kg braked trailer, or 750kg unbraked.

At the other extreme, every seat except the driver's can be folded flat, turning the SUV into an impressive cargo carrier well suited to accommodating long loads.

With all seats in place in the LX, there's room for just 85 litres of cargo; fold everything away and it opens up to 1565 litres, more than 18 times greater.

At 4637mm the Captiva is 219mm shorter than Territory. MaXX is 4570mm long, but built on the same 2707mm wheelbase. Territory's wheelbase is 2842mm.

Holden says the Captiva is closest to the luxury BMW X5 in terms of dimensions.

Captiva works as a front-wheel-drive until sensors detect slippage and engage the rear wheels through an electronically controlled electro-hydraulic centre differential.

All-wheel-drive is supplemented with stability control and traction control.

Like most of its contemporaries, Captiva makes no claims to be a true off-roader, with only 200mm of ground clearance, modest approach and departure angles, and no low-range gearing.

The traction control is on-road oriented, but Captiva scores one over Territory by offering hill-descent control as standard. It is optional on the Ford.

Using all-independent suspension of MacPherson struts in the front and a four-link design in the back, Captiva comfortably handles a wide range of road surfaces.

The engine gives a lively performance, although it gets loud when worked hard. Holden says it has no plans at this stage to offer a rival to the turbocharged Territory, but if it did then supercharging would be the preferred boost.

Typical fuel consumption for a 400km test-drive trip was just over a little more than 10 litres/100km, an Ohakune-sized carrot for the consumption-conscious.