If space is luxury, then the Holden Acadia LTZ-V is a luxury SUV

– By Marc Sibbald – 

Recently I was planning an overseas trip and complaining to a colleague that I couldn’t afford business class. It occurred to me that space equals luxury. If this hypothesis is correct, then the Holden Acadia LTZ-V is extravagant luxury for a novated lease.

I’d been driving the Acadia for two weeks before I came to this conclusion. It’s big to look at, cavernous on the inside with leather everywhere. I knew that I liked it but couldn’t explain why. With the Holden badge I wasn’t even leaning towards luxurious as a description in this review. Now, by putting my previous bias aside, I’m classifying the Acadia LTZ-V as a luxury SUV.

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The paint colour for my review car was Dark Shadow which is a prestige paint option. It made the Acadia look like the big American SUVs used in spy movies to indicate the bad guys. So with trepidation I approached the vehicle expecting to step inside a Hollywood movie and be treated to the tacky styling and poor build quality of the pre-GFC American built cars.

After a few minutes I found myself with a serving of humble pie and an appreciation for why Holden is working so hard to change the public’s perception of their SUV range. This car was beautiful and comfortable. It’s definitely a Holden and worth a test drive for anyone considering a seven seat SUV in a novated lease.

Then I started to notice the little things which reminded me of the other Holden’s I like to drive. The remote starting function which allows me to start the car from inside the house on a cold winter’s morning. I’ve missed this on other cars I’ve driven recently. Slipping into a heated seat with the climate control set to 24 degrees is a really great way to start the morning commute.

Safety is a big part of the equipment list in the Acadia (and most other cars in this price range). The things I liked the most were the Forward Collision Alert system and the Traffic Sign Recognition.

Forward Collision Alert works the same way as in the new Commodore. If you’re approaching an object and haven’t started braking, the system will alert you with an alarm and flashing red light in the vision of the driver. It’s scary the first time it happens but you’ll be grateful. And it does sound in the wrong situations sometimes, though not enough times to be annoying.

Traffic Sign Recognition (TSR) is the car’s best feature when driving through Sydney’s maze of road construction and varying speed zones. Navigation systems can tell you what the legal speed is for a road under normal conditions. They can’t adjust for roadworks zones that may change on a daily or weekly basis.

TSR uses the camera in the windscreen to read the road speed signs and display the current speed on the instrument cluster. Then it flashes as a warning if you are travelling faster then the posted speed. This is a speeding ticket saver when you’re driving in unfamiliar areas, school zones and through road works. And it’s available in the base model Acadia LT as standard.

The Acadia really does live up to the advertising hype. You don’t just turn up, you arrive in style.

What does it look like as a Novated Lease?

This data is from the 2019 Novated Leasing Guide produced by Fleet Auto News.