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Vauxhall Motors is the UK subsidiary of General Motors. Although originally the most significant part of the GM European operations, Vauxhall has had many ups and downs, with particular low periods in the mid 1970s and the late 1990s.

Table of contents

1 Origins of the name and the logo

2 History

3 Cars produced by Vauxhall Motors

4 Light commercial vehicles

5 See also

6 External links

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Origins of the name and the logo

The griffin emblem, which is still in use to this day, (above right) is derived from the coat of arms of Fulk le Breant, a mercenary soldier who was granted the Manor of Luton for services to King John in the thirteenth century. By marriage, he also gained the rights to an area near London, south of the Thames. The house he built, Fulk's Hall, became known in time as Vauxhall.

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History

Vauxhall Motors was originally founded in Vauxhall, London in 1857 by Alexander Wilson as the Vauxhall Iron Works. The Vauxhall Iron Works built machinery such as pumps and marine engines. In 1903 the company built its first car, a 5 hp (4 kW) model steered using a tiller, with only two forward gears and no reverse. However this led to a better design which was made available for sale.

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1962 Vauxhall Cresta

To expand production the company moved to Luton in 1905, and so the griffin emblem returned to its ancestral home. The company continued to trade under the name Vauxhall Iron Works until 1907, when the modern name of Vauxhall Motors Ltd. was adopted. The company was characterised by its sporting successes, but after the First World War, designed more austere models. Vauxhall was bought by GM in 1925 for 2.5 million US dollars.

During World War Two, car production was suspended, and Vauxhall designed the Churchill tank, which was designed at Luton in less than a year, and assembled there as well as at a variety of other sites. A total of over 5,600 Churchill tanks were built.

After the war, car production resumed but models were designed as a much more mass-market product, leading to great expansion of the company. A new manufacturing plant at Ellesmere Port was built in 1960. During the 1960s Vauxhall acquired a reputation for making rust-prone models, though in this respect most manufacturers were equally as bad. The corrosion protection built-in to models was tightened up significantly, but the reputation dogged the company until the early 1980s. From the 1970s, most models were designed and built in partnership with Opel in Germany. The Chevette, Cavalier and Carlton were basically restyled versions of the Kadett, Ascona and Rekord, featuring a distinct sloping front end, nicknamed the "droopsnoot", first prototyped on the HPF Firenza. The Viceroy and Royale were simply rebadged versions of Opel's Commodore and Senator, imported from Germany.

This was the starting point for the "Opelisation" of Vauxhall. With the 1979 demise of the Viva, future GM policy dictated that future Vauxhall models would be in effect, rebadged Opels, designed and developed in Rüsselsheim, with little or no engineering input from Luton. In the late 70's and early 80's, GM dealers in the UK and the Republic of Ireland would sell otherwise identical Opel and Vauxhall models alongside each other, but this policy of duplication was phased out, beginning with the demise of Opel dealerships in the UK in 1981. The last Opel car (the Manta coupe) to be "officially" sold in Britain was withdrawn in 1988.

Similarly, the Vauxhall brand was dropped by GM in the Republic of Ireland in 1982. Many new Opel-badged cars are privately imported into the UK from Ireland, and other EU countries, while many Vauxhalls are imported second hand into the Republic.

GM Europe then began to standardise model names across both brands in the early 1990s - the Vauxhall Astra and Opel Kadett for example were both called Astra from 1991 onwards; the Vauxhall Cavalier and Opel Vectra were both called Vectra from 1995 and so on. With the exception of the VX220, sold by Opel as the Speedster, all of Vauxhall's models now have the same names as those of Opel.

Since 1994, Vauxhall models differ from Opels in that they have a distinct grille featuring a 'V', incorporating the Vauxhall badge. This has also been used by Holden in New Zealand, and even on the Indian version of the Opel Astra.

A model unique to the Vauxhall range is the high performance Monaro coupe, which is sourced from Holden in Australia. Although this model is also produced in left hand drive (LHD) for markets like the US (known as the Pontiac GTO) and the Middle East (known as the Chevrolet Lumina), the model is not currently offered by Opel in the Europe.

The Luton plant finally closed in 2000, but production still continues at the plant in Ellesmere Port. Many cars badged as Opels, even LHD models, are in fact produced by Vauxhall for export.

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