Vauxhall
started life in 1857 as Alex Wilson and Company, which was renamed the Vauxhall
Iron Works who were based in the London suburb of Vauxhall. They took the
family emblem of a 13th Century Norman soldier, Faulkes de Breaute,
who was a pal of King John’s. The King gave him some land north of London and
he gained more near the city when he married. The land near London City was
where he built a house called Faulkes Hall which evolved to Vauxhall and became
a suburb of the city.
Alex Wilson made pumps and marine engines and built their first car in 1903. With its release to the public, they needed a bigger premises and chose Luton, north of London – incidentally this is where Faulkes was given land by the King eight centuries earlier. They moved there in 1905 and two years later they renamed the company, Vauxhall Motors.
The early cars had simple names like A, B, C and D-type. They had sidevalve engines and as you can expect at such a early stage of the industry, very low power for the size – in this case 40 - 60hp for 3 litres. They started out as sports cars but by the D-type, they had become more like sports tourers.
In 1925, General Motors acquired Vauxhall, 4 years before it bought Opel. GM was already building Chevrolets in Europe and this first acquisition lead to the founding of GM Europe. This helped Vauxhall by bringing in new designs from the US that they could use.
Chevrolet trucks were being imported from Canada to the UK and with the great depression, it made sense to build them locally in the UK, so Vauxhall created Bedford Trucks - named after the county that Luton is in. Bedfords were basically Chevrolets to start with.
After the war, with Europe rebuilding, Vauxhall started to produce more saloons and light commercial vehicles that sold very well. In the UK, they were direct competitors to Ford and Rootes and were known for names starting with V – the Velox, Victor, Viva, Ventora to name a few. Most were US or Opel based designs with localised features and were segmented into executive, mid and compact models.
And like other manufacturers one car fitted several segments. The Velox had a base model called the Cresta and a luxury version called the Viscount. The Velox and Ventora’s had 6 cylinder engines whilst the Viva and Victor had a 1.5 litre 4 pot motor and were the entry level models. The Victor was the last model to have British influence until Opel’s design studio became dominant.
During the late 60s, Ford built a relationship with Lotus for the Cortina – Lotus were the premier F1 team at the time and the Lotus Cortina was the offspring. Vauxhall did the same. They got together with Brabham, Lotus’ main competitor in F1, and they built a Lotus Cortina competitor – the Viva SL/90 HB.
Incidentally, the Viva, a hugely successful model was sold as a Holden Torana in Australia and the Envoy Epic in Canada. The Viva spawned the Firenza, a coupe to compete with the other big 4’s coupe’s: the Capri, Marina Coupe and others. The Firenza was raced successfully and included the “droopsnoot” version that was called the HPF: the High Performance Firenza. The Viva had a 1.1 or 1.2 litre engine, the Firenza ended up with a 2.3, so lived up to it’s name.
The 70s saw the rise of Vauxhall from 4th place behind Ford, Rootes and British Leyland to 2nd spot as they started to build cars that the public wanted and Rootes and BL struggled with the Unions and the dropping of brands as well as producing cars that were not well liked. Vauxhall took the GM J platform for the Chevette and then built the Cavalier. These cars shared lots of components from Opel and GM Europe soon realised that they were selling similar cars that were cannibalising their brands, so they dropped Opel from the UK mainland.
The Chevette and Cavalier were soon complemented by the Astra and Nova to complete a revamped line up that strengthened the sales and brand. Today, Vauxhall competes head-on with Ford and their products are similarly priced and sized. Even though most designs are from Opel, Vauxhall have also used models from Holden in Australia – the Monaro and VXR8 are rebadged for sale in the UK.
Vauxhalls were built in Luton and Ellesmere Port, north west England. The Luton plant was closed in 2002 and vehicles are still being built in Ellesmere Port although many are produced in Europe on the same lines as Opel models. This may change after both Vauxhall and Opel were caught up in a sell-off debacle with General Motors in 2009.