VAUXHALL plans to keep making the old Astra even after launching the all-new version in May.

Production of entry-level right-hand drive models will stay on sale as a budget-price entry into the Vauxhall range, although production of the old model will move from Ellesmere Port in Cheshire to an Opel plant in Poland.

Priced from just under £10,000 these models will stay in production until the new three-door model range is introduced in spring 2005.

Bill Parfitt, executive director of sales, marketing and aftersales for Vauxhall and Saab said: "We made the decision to keep the current car in production because we want to keep an Astra model available for every customer until the new fifth generation range was complete. I expect we can sell 5-6,000 of these vehicles."

In addition to the three-door range Vauxhall will be introducing, in the spring next year, a new estate to the range and a replacement convertible with a metal folding rood will also join the all new fifth generation range.

Since the Astra was launched in the United Kingdom in 1980 more than two million have been sold here, and more than 100,000 are sold each year making it the third highest selling new car in the UK in 2003. At the moment Astra (and its Opel derivatives) account for 22 per cent of the of the four million cars sold in the segment in Western Europe every year.

The UK will be the largest European market for the new Astra and Vauxhall predict 48,000 being sold in the remainder of this year. Prices start at £10,995.

A lot of money (about £700m), time and effort has gone into building the new Astra. Designers, technicians and marketing teams have thrown buckets of tender,loving care at it as it has progressed from drawing board to production line.

The latest version is not the result of giving an oldie a bit of a make-over and hoping no-one notices, but is a car carrying around 90 per cent of totally new fixtures and fittings.

Vauxhall expects it to attract new, younger customers who may not have been tempted by the model before.

And this means tempting them away from the Ford Focus, Volkswagen Golf, Mazda 3, Renault Megane and the Honda Civic, all strong sellers in a large stable of vehicles.

Updated: 11:40 Friday, March 26, 2004