If you want me to fall in love with the car, give me a lot of screen display. But don’t just stick a display on top of a dashboard and cramp as much as you can into one small screen so that you’ve got space for more blank dashboard. I can get a cheap after-aftermarket device from Temu to do that for me.
Build it in, integrate it and have it working where it not only has the most effect, but it also looks and feels good. A car isn’t an office desk with walls big enough to decorate, so the more screen you give me instead of dashboard, the happier I am.
That’s a very long winded way of saying that the new Opel Grandland is a happy space for me. I love the displays. The wide, yet fairly narrow (top-to-bottom) driver’s instrument cluster avoids the mistake of trying to give maximum inches of display and therefore hiding half the information behind the steering wheel, forcing one to bend down or look over the steering wheel to see the full cluster.
Instead, it aims at maximum view of display. I can see the entire instrument cluster behind my steering wheel, and the information on the cluster is also optimal. Mostly, the speed limit of the road you’re currently on is front and centre. It’s probably more important than the speed itself, because it also tells you what speed you’re going at above or below that limit. Just below that is a compact lane guide, which tells you not just how close you are to the edges of your lane, but also how far the next car is in front of you, in a very neat but rich graphic display
All the key information is there: engine temperature, petrol level with your remaining range displayed right above the fuel indicator. It’s astonishing how rare that is, and astonishing how obvious it is once you see it.
The infotainment system, again, is relatively narrow top to bottom and very wide side to side. It sits alongside the instrument cluster, but not integrated into it. In combination, though, it gives the appearance of display flowing from the driver’s passenger door partly into the passenger seat view.
Part of the reason for that flow is that it is divided into sections: the central or main home display provides phone connection information, settings, application drawer, help, and audio information, if you’re using radio or other non-streaming source.
Alongside that, you have what you might call an information panel as part of the same screen, which tells you if you’re using Android Auto or waiting for a connection to Auto. It lets you scroll down this section while you still in Android Auto or in Google Maps and Spotify, for example, on your main panel within the infotainment system. It scrolls down through audio information, a reading of air quality, and your current massage mode, which I’ll come back to, as there is so much to be said there.
Even further to the left, into the passenger side, lies a very clear and accessible control for the fan and temperature, which is pure pleasure, given how difficult it often is to find those controls in an infotainment system. And that isn’t even the only way to access your car climate, because below the infotainment system you have physical buttons for fan control and temperature, for the passenger side and the driver side, as well as s various other temperature and heat settings. Alongside those, you have a traditional on and off switch with a volume button built in, ideal for when you don’t want to figure out suddenly where you’ve got to increase or decrease volume on your steering wheel, or even mute your music. And that is an often “for when” for me.
Talking of the steering wheel, it houses full functionality, from Driver Assist functions, with cruise control settings and the like, through to phone and voice control functionality.
But you’re sitting there thinking to yourself, “When is he going to tell us about the massage functionality?” Well, both the driver’s and the passenger seats, which can be controlled from the infotainment system, have optional massage functionality that you can set for strength, and for the kind of massage you want. And everyone’s favourite massage is going to be the Cat Paw.
One can choose a strength setting from zero to three, which is maximum intensity when you’re really stressed on the road. That’s the one you’re going to go for, with that cat paw digging into your back. It feels like a cat kneading your back, but In strategic positions to increase your relaxation.
While your massage mode is easy to spot, setting is not. You have go Home, select Application Drawer, and go to Seat Options. That brings up the default massage function you had seen in the previous panel. Press the hamburger bar, and you can then swipe through on the touch screen to the massage you want.
There’s the Wave, which speaks for itself. There’s the Stretch, ditto. And there’s the Lumbar, which is, of course, your lower back massage. Then the shoulders, your upper back massage. There’s snake, and that’s all over the place, literally, but very cool. You can have Side to Side if you want to spread the joy. And finally Butterfly, which moves from corner to corner, lower left to upper right, upper left to lower left and so on.
But who wouldn’t want to get Cat Paw as the default?
Meanwhile, what’s it like to drive? Oh, you forgot you’re driving, with all that relaxation?
For starters, you feel in control of the car and the road. It’s a large car. It’s not one for zipping in and out of traffic. You’ve got to make sure there’s space to zip out and space to zip in again, and you’re not going to make those very tight little gaps. Despite that, its turning circle is incredibly small, more so than some cars that feel half its size.
And it is a very smooth ride on the road. It takes the speed bumps with aplomb and shifts gears easily, unless you’re going uphill and you suddenly want to accelerate, when you can feel the strain. It’s not that it can’t do it. It just tells you that it’s doing it. But once you’re moving and you want to accelerate, and you’re not in too much of a hurry, it accelerates beautifully and smoothly.
And then there is … wait, that Cats Paw is really getting to that magic spot in my back. I have to sign off now.
* The Opel Grandland retails from R789,900 upward, depending on configuration. See full specs here: https://www.opel.co.za/content/dam/opel/south_africa/specs/aug2025/GrandlandSpecsheet1_V2.pdf
* Arthur Goldstuck is CEO of World Wide Worx, editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za, and author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI – The African Edge”.