WHEN VauxHall BEaT FORD

We drive the car that Vauxhall built to take on Ford on the rally circuit – then made even better

With similar philosophies of ‘keep it simple, sell it cheap’, there was very little to separate the Viva or Chevette that you’d find on a forecourt from Ford’s Escort, so marketing was key – and in the mid-Seventies Ford was winning. With support directly from Dagenham, the Escort won every single British Rally Championship from 1971-1978. GM wouldn’t sanction a full works team, thus Dealer Team Vauxhall (DTV) was formed, as a number of Vauxhall dealers banded together to try to overturn Ford’s domination. Led by tuner Bill Blydenstein, DTV’s efforts with the Viva and Firenza were exciting but ultimately fruitless. Vauxhall chairman, Bob Price, finally realised the extent of the problem in 1976, and committed to building a rally version of the new Chevette in conjunction with Blydenstein. But still, the lack of full support from GM hurt, with Vauxhall slow to develop the 400 Chevette HSs needed to homologate the car. Then Blydenstein’s use of a Lotus cylinder head on his competition cars saw them disqualified from numerous events, most embarrassingly the 1978 Rally Portugal. By 1979, though, Blydenstein’s cars had a Vauxhall cylinder head and Vauxhall was building the correct number of HSs, leaving the Chevette clear to race. That year, Pentti Airikkala finally ended Ford’s domination of British rallying in a DTV Chevette HS. To stay competitive, Vauxhall developed the HSR for 1980, which added five-link rear suspension, a GRP bodykit and some extra power. While notching up Vauxhall’s sole manufacturer title in the 1981 British Rally Championship, the HSR looked increasingly outdated, and was finally ditched when DTV merged with Opel Dealer Team at the end of 1981.

The Hsr’s GrP bodykit gained it the nickname ‘plastic fantastic’ in period.

The Ford escort dominated rallying in the 1970s and gave standard models the sporting appeal that Vauxhalls lacked – until the chevette Hs appeared.