The Vauxhall Cavalier, along with the smaller
Chevette signalled the end of British Vauxhall design and the ascendency of a series of well-put
together cars from Opel’s design studio. But UK customers didn’t really mind, in
fact they approved with Vauxhall going from the purveyors of rust buckets that very nearly
got shut down completely to the number 2 car brand in the 80s. It’s an amazing turnaround, and a large
part of it can be attributed to the Vauxhall Cavalier. So how did this happen? What did Vauxhall and Opel do to make the
much-loved Vauxhall Cavalier the 6th highest selling UK car of all time? This is the Vauxhall Cavalier Story. (music) The story starts with the
release of the Ford Capri in 1968. GM’s German subsidiary, Opel had got wind
of the new car, and started production of a competitor. This would result in the 1970 Opel Manta. But at the same time Opel realised they could
use the Manta’s chassis as the basis for a new saloon car that they originally intended
to replace the Kadett, but it eventually became a new car that would fit between the Kadett
and the lager Rekord. General Motors and Ford were old rivals in
North America, and GM wanted to best its old rival in Europe. The Manta would take on the Ford Capri, and
the Ascona would take on Ford’s mighty Cortina. And like the Cortina, it would be available
as a 2 or 4-door saloon, plus an estate. It was even exported back to the United States
as the “Opel 1900” until exchange rate woes and emissions rules led GM to import
the Japanese Isuzu Gemini, itself based on the Opel Kadett! Over in Britain, Vauxhall’s star was on
the wane with a series of poor financial results. In short, they weren’t selling enough cars. In the 50s and 60s their cars had been dogged
by rust issues. Even though Vauxhall had got on top of these
issues, customers’ had long memories, and the Vauxhall Viva and larger Victor weren’t
making much of a dent on Cortina sales. Ford had started rationalising its European
car design teams. All cars from the 1967 Ford Escort onwards
would be pan-European cars, and it was natural that General Motors would do the same to save
costs. With Opel’s German workers producing solid
cars that people actually bought, it put Vauxhall’s team at a disadvantage. What Vauxhall needed was a big hit, preferably something to take on
the dominant Ford Cortina of course. Their initial plans had been to take the Vauxhall
Victor platform; shorten it, and to use it as a new larger Vauxhall Viva. The company went as far as a 4-door saloon
mock-up known in 1971 as the Cerian. It had a modern look that had no front grille. Work continued into late 1971 refining the
shape, where the 4-door turned into a 5-door with the inclusion of a hatchback. It also gained stylish flush-mounted door
handles. By 1972 the team moved onto a full-sized mock-up
that included an interior design. In addition, the team created a sporty 3-door
to augment the range. By the end of 1972 the car was taking shape,
and all that was left was for management to agree to put it into production. At the same time another team within Vauxhall
was working on a competing design. Again, it used a larger chassis and was intended
to be a new, larger Vauxhall Viva, but this was more conservatively styled, providing
elements from the existing Viva. With the increasing fashion for hatchbacks,
this would be both a 2 and 4-door saloon, and a 3 and 5-door hatchback. But with Vauxhall cars selling like stale
cakes, the company was losing money hand-over-fist, and the hammer fell on both projects. GM even considered shutting down all car development,
design and production, especially after Britain’s entry into the Common Market in 1973 made
importing cars from the European mainland cheaper. However, after much deliberation the decision
was taken to keep manufacturing cars in the UK, but with a significantly reduced design
team. Vauxhall would sell rebadged cars designed
by GM and Opel. But the problem remained of a Cortina competitor. This problem also dogged Opel in Germany,
where Ford had started telling the Cortina as the Ford Taunus. Opel were working to extend their Ascona from
being only a little larger than the Escort to be a true Cortina competitor. With the Ascona selling well, it was decided
to introduce the updated model to British shores as well. Maybe to justify their existence - what’s
left of Vauxhall’s development team felt it needed some changes for the British market. Although the mk2 Ascona had updated suspension,
Vauxhall made a few more changes. The Ascona’s styling would be updated with
larger front lights and a smaller front grille; similar to the next Cortina update, but Vauxhall’s
American design chief, Wayne Cherry, wanted something more exciting. He’d worked on Vauxhall’s aborted Cerian,
he’d been responsible for the transatlantic Vauxhall Firenza styling, as well as the Vauxhall
Styling Research Vehicle concept that owed less to the Vauxhall Victor and more to a
Saturn V rocket! By 1973 he’d produced a comprehensive rework
of the Ascona’s exterior to give the car a familiar Vauxhall look. A new interior was also investigated but was
ultimately rejected in favour of Opel’s design. By the summer the car had a tentative name
– the “Magnum”, maybe to not so subtly imply its larger size. It also got a launch date - 1977. Like the Cerian, the car would be both a saloon
and a hatchback. In 1974 General Motors brought in a new man
to run Vauxhall – Bob Price. He’d been highly successful running General
Motors in South Africa, doggedly harrying his workers to improve quality and it had
born fruit. He was keen to do the same to Vauxhall, but
more importantly he wanted to make it a successful, profitable enterprise that would persuade
GM to keep the lights on. The Magnum would use Vauxhall engines and
gearboxes, but after a cost review, the decision was made to go with Opel parts. The styling team also reworked the Magnum
design to make it closer to the upcoming Opel Manta design. This would allow the new car to use Opel bumpers
and other parts, so reducing not just the cost to make the new car, but the time it
would take to bring it to market. At this point work on the new car just ground
to a halt for some reason, and the Magnum name would be pilfered for use on an enlarged
Vauxhall Viva. Vauxhall’s finances, thanks to the oil crisis
were heading south again. It would take until April 1975 until plans
for the new car would solidify. And it was a daring plan. In just 6 months’ time Vauxhall would release
the new car. It would be heavily based on the Ascona but
would use the Opel Manta front end. Underbody rust prevention would be included
as it was on all other Vauxhalls, to ensure rust wouldn’t come back to haunt the Vauxhall
name. The new car, now named the British sounding
“Cavalier” maybe to hide its Germanic origin, would only be available as a 2 or
4-door saloon, just like the Ascona, with a 2-door coupé that was essentially the updated
Opel Manta. Trim levels would match the Cortina, as would
the price. Vauxhall wasn’t playing around here. Big compromises had to be made to get Vauxhall
fighting with Ford not in 1977, but now. One major hurdle in this plan was production. To meet this goal, the car would need to be
produced in the Ascona factory in Belgium. This was not going to sit well with trade
unions who would see this as the beginning of the end for British Vauxhall production. They would have to be assured that production
at British factories would begin as soon as possible, but it would involve delicate negotiations. (music) Amazingly, Vauxhall pulled this daring plan off, and the new Vauxhall Cavalier would launch
at the London Motor Show in October 1975 to great reviews. The fresh sporty looks struck a chord and
made the 5-year old Cortina look suddenly dated. The suspension changes were spot on and were
a stand-out feature. Using the Ascona for the new car had been
a master stroke. Vauxhall had been able to deliver a fresh-looking
new car on a shoestring budget, and the increased output would allow Opel to repay the development
budget much faster. Back when Opel and Vauxhall produced different
cars, Opel dealers in the UK distributed them. It seems Vauxhall hadn’t informed them of
the Cavalier’s launch, as they had to immediately discount the Opel Ascona and even provide
customers refunds. Egg was definitely on face! With near identical cars sold at Vauxhall
and Opel dealers not just in the UK but in many European countries, GM spent the late 1970s consolidating dealers into one Vauxhall/Opel network. With strong demand for the Cavalier, and the
end of the unloved Vauxhall Victor, production would soon begin in Luton. And with British production, the smaller Vauxhall
1.3L engine was added to the existing Opel 1.6L and 1.9L engines. Soon it was the best-selling Vauxhall in Britain. But with the new, larger Cortina released
in 1976, and Vauxhall not having a competitive fleet line-up, the Cortina remained far ahead
in terms of sales. Back in 1971 Vauxhall had been working on
the exciting “Sport Hatch” version of the Cerian, that showed there was still life
in Vauxhall’s design department yet, and a Targa version was even considered. Despite the constantly scaled back plans for
the new car, Wayne Cherry’s hatchback concept had never really gone away. The 1972 mock-up would have turned heads if
it had been released and was still around in a slightly watered-down form in 1974. But despite all the turmoil, work continued
at Opel’s design studio, possibly because Ford’s 1974 Capri II was a hatchback, and
the Opel Manta wasn’t. Work on a hatchback 3-door Ascona and Cavalier
continued and became the first joint release of a Vauxhall/Opel car in September 1978 as
the Sports Hatch. Reviewers said it was better than the Capri,
although they felt it was a little down on power. Vauxhall also offered a short-lived open-top
that same year, with the conversion work done by an outside coachbuilder. With Vauxhall’s recent penchant for car
names starting with “C”, this was known as the “Centaur”. This expanded the ever-growing Cavalier line-up,
but one shape that was missing was the estate version, something the Cortina range had offered
for years. This, along with Bedford van and pick-up versions
was investigated, but with these shapes being low sellers for all manufacturers, it was
decided to steer customers to the smaller Chevette estate. The Ascona / Cavalier was also sold in South
Africa as the Chevrolet Chevair. It had the Cavalier’s droop snout nose,
but with grille openings, probably to help cool the larger engines. Cavalier sales were strong, but a strike at
the beginning of 1979 killed output. When the strikes ended, Vauxhall returned
to full capacity, just at the time when demand for new cars dried up, leaving many cars left
unsold. Vauxhall had planned an updated 1980 model
to better compete with the Cortina, but they had to wait to shift the old stock before
they could launch it. The last hurrah for the mk1 Cavalier, and
indeed the Vauxhall design department was the Silver Aero shown at the 1980 British
Motor Show. With all car design now moving to Opel, Vauxhall
wanted to show what it could do. The result was what amounted to a trim kit,
bigger 2.4L engine and interior upgrade that Vauxhall said would be offered to existing
customers, but it never materialised. But what a trim kit! It dropped the drag to just 0.32. But producing something that would dampen
demand for the upcoming mk2 Cavalier didn’t really make sense, and Vauxhall management
seems to have agreed. It showed an insight into what Wayne Cherry
and his team could achieve if given more resources. This actually ended up happening, as he moved
from the design backwater of Vauxhall to Opel where he supervised the design of the Astra,
the Corsa, the Calibra and even the Tigra, and he eventually become head of GM Design
back in Detroit. The Ascona / Cavalier strategy had proved
a well put together pan-European car would work for GM. It hadn’t threatened the Cortina or even
the Marina come to that, but it had got customers to take another look at Vauxhall, and they
liked what they saw. The mk2 Cavalier / mk3 Ascona would go a step
further. It would be built on the J-body platform that
wouldn’t just be used for GM’s European mid-size car, but also in Australia as the
Holden Camira, in Japan as the Isuzu Aska, and even in North America as the Chevrolet
Cavalier and Cadillac Cimarron. It also eventually ended up being used for
Korean customers as the 1990 Daewoo Espero. The new platform was little more than a stretched
Vauxhall Astra / Opel Kadett chassis. But this allowed it to share many parts such
as the front wheel drive layout, a change from the mk1 Cavalier that had been rear wheel
drive. But Vauxhall would make much of this revised
layout as a competitive advantage at launch. It was helpful to both companies, as it allowed
the Astra and Cavalier to share the same engines and gearboxes and use virtually identical
suspension. This allowed GM to produce a car for less
money, and this allowed them to either get more profit, or lower the price to better
compete with Ford. And with continuing interest in hatchbacks,
the car would be a saloon and a 5-door hatchback. The underpinnings of the car were conservative
– basic, solid mechanicals that would just go on working. And this extended to the conservative styling
that for the first time was shared across both cars. The front was a compromise between the Cavalier’s
droop snout and the Ascona’s slab design. This improved the Ascona’s drag factor,
from 0.46 down to 0.39. Like the mk1 Cavalier’s introduction, they
beat Ford’s new car to the market by a year. This again offered a fresh new design that
stood out against the older competition. And fleet managers and the public were happy
that like the old car, it drove well, it was cheap to service and was well put together. As Vauxhall kept telling us in their adverts,
it was “Better, By Design”. In fact, it outclassed all its rivals, and
was soon flying off dealer’s forecourts. Company cars were getting more and more important,
particularly in the UK. Company reps needed a car to travel the length
of the country selling their products, so the Government gave them a tax break to use
the car as their daily driver as well. Soon companies realised that they could offer
cars to employees as tax free perks whether they drove them for the company or not, and
many would include a car as part of their compensation package. So, Vauxhall needed to be competitive in the
fleet market, which meant they had to have a comprehensive line-up. A hatchback supermini, plus van variants for
the people who actually did the work, a class-leading mid-sized car for the reps and the telephone
sanitisers, and a luxurious large car for the management. The Astra had arrived in 1980, the Nova would
arrive in 1982, and the Carlton and Senator rounded out the range. But unlike Vauxhall’s 60s and 70s offerings,
these were all solid, reliable cars that the public wanted. And if the public wanted them, then fleets
wanted them. But how would the Cavalier compete against
the Cortina’s successor? The answer came one year after the Cavalier’s
launch, with the new Ford Sierra. To reduce drag the car had gone for a radical
new shape that wasn’t to everyone’s taste. "What Car?" reviewed both cars, and despite
proclaiming the Sierra the better car, they decided if it were their money, they’d choose the Cavalier
as they just couldn’t stomach the Sierra’s looks. And when it came down to it, many of the buying
public felt the same way. Plus, the Sierra was only a hatchback, where
many UK customers still wanted a saloon. By 1984 the Cavalier was the number 2 selling
car in the UK, with the Sierra a distant 5th. A combination of Ford’s misstep with Vauxhall/Opel’s
increasing ability to make the right moves were finally paying dividends. With this European success, GM was able to
build an estate version of the Cavalier. But it wouldn’t be designed in Europe, but
in Australia where it had started life as the Holden Camira wagon. Holden packed up the rear body panels and
shipped them to Europe as knock-down kits, a reversal of the days when Europe sent car
parts to Australia for assembly. But on launch it was a bit of a dud, and sales
disappointed. As for engines, like the previous car there
was a range between 1.3L and 2.0L, and a frugal 1.6L diesel was also added. But the Cavalier had its fun side as well. The SRi and SRi 130 sporty models produced
up to 128 fuel injected horses (95 kW). To keep on the pressure, a styling update
arrived in 1985, and eventually an open top version was sold. But you should never write off Ford, and the
Sierra was back ahead of the Cavalier again in 1986 thanks to discounts, advertising,
and eventually significant styling updates. Vauxhall would keep on the pressure with further
changes in 1987, and the limited-edition Cavalier Calibre, but in truth they already had their
eyes on a new mk3 Cavalier that would arrive the following year. It was clear that people were warming to the
Sierra’s jelly mould styling, and you couldn’t fight against its better drag factor that
meant it got better fuel economy. So, the new Vauxhall Cavalier and Opel Vectra
as it would be known, would focus on a slippery, updated, fashionable, yet still conservative
shape. The chassis would be the new GM2900, that
again got used around the world by cars as diverse as the Saab 9-3 and 9-5, Saturn L-Series
in America, and thanks to Saab’s sale in 2008 the Chinese Senova D70 in 2013, and NEVS
9-3 which are actually still being produced! But despite the new chassis, most of the mechanicals
were pretty similar to the previous car, but as that was selling well, well why change
it? After all, by Government statistics the Cavalier
was the 3rd most common car on the road by the end of the 80s. The new Cavalier would be launched in 1988
as a 4-door saloon and 5-door hatchback, but no estate version, especially as it wasn’t
going to be sold in Australia. While Opel switched to the Vectra name, Vauxhall
was worried this would bring up memories of the rust-prone, but similar-sounding Vauxhall
Victor. Despite sports coupé’s being out of fashion,
Vauxhall bucked the trend with an Opel Manta replacement, the Vauxhall Calibra, also built
on the Cavalier chassis. Penned by our old friend Wayne Cherry, now
soaring high at Opel’s design team, it showed his interest in low drag cars, having a drag
factor of just 0.26. The Calibra remained the most aerodynamic
mass production car until 1999 when it was usurped by the Honda Insight. But with engines ranging from 2.0L to a 2.5L
V6 with a 0-60 of just 7.4s, it was the cool older brother to the workhorse Cavalier and
a halo car for the whole range. And it seemed to help, as by 1990 the Cavalier
was once again ahead of the Sierra in terms of sales, and it would continue that way until
the Mondeo was introduced in 1993. But Ford still ruled the roost, as customers
were moving to smaller cars such as the Fiesta and Escort. Or seeing as the chart topping 1992 Ford Escort
was about the same size as the chart topping 1972 Ford Cortina, maybe most customers didn’t
need a car with a wheelbase longer than 100” (254 cm)? To better compete with the 1985 4WD Sierra
XR4x4, Vauxhall released the Cavalier 4x4, and like the Calibra, it would get a 2.5L
V6 engine giving the Cavalier a lot of power, along with a 2.0L 200hp turbo model. Safety features that were appearing on other
cars also showed up, such as ABS and airbags. The exterior got an update to keep the car
looking fresh ahead of the next version of the Cavalier, renamed the Vectra, that arrived
in 1995. In the space of 20 years Vauxhall, with Opel’s
help, had gone from a loss-making enterprise that GM was thinking of closing down into
the number 2 UK car maker. Bob Price’s daring plan to release a car
in just 6 months and having to get militant 1970s unions on their side in the process,
was a master stroke that saved many Vauxhall manufacturing jobs. But to continue to survive it had to give
up on designing its own cars and just focus on manufacturing and sales. It did both of those things brilliantly. There’s a good reason why Vauxhall sold
over 1.8M Cavalier’s. It wasn’t the highest quality car on the
market, it wasn’t the fastest, it wasn’t the coolest, but in the areas that counted
– servicing, price, durability and yes, even looks – it gave an all-round package
that couldn’t be beaten. A big thank you to all my Patrons for supporting
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