Team Adventure
Danny Hopkins drives Vauxhall’s very own Viva GT home to its birthplace
Danny Hopkins takes the last of Vauxhall’s heritage fleet back home to Ellesmere Port.
If you love your classic, you are likely to have taken it back to its place of manufacture at some point. It’s a nostalgic rite of passage and, if you manage to get to those factory gates, the trip usually results in a cherished photograph and a grumpy stare from a security guard. I’ve done it with several of my own classics because I’m a sucker for a sentimental journey, and I have a number of hard stares and cherished photographs to show for it. Being a Vauxhallista, the chance to drive the last Vauxhall Heritage car left in Luton (after the collection was mothballed) back to the Ellesmere Port plant where it was built was too good to miss, and this time the security guard would let me in. I was in for a treat.
But first, some history. Vauxhall was founded in 1857 and has been making cars
since 1903. In 1905 it moved to Luton from, guess where… yep, Vauxhall (in London), and from 1925 to 2017 it was owned by General Motors. It was bought by PSA which was, in turn, bought by Stellantis – which sounds like an undersea city off the coast of Greece, but is actually the world’s fifth-largest car maker, owner of PSA, Fiat, Chrysler and Vauxhall.
Let’s not knock it; Britain’s oldest car-making brand continues making cars in Britain, and both the two major factories – Luton and Ellesmere Port in Cheshire – are still in operation. Obviously, this means that if you own a British-built Vauxhall you are lucky, as you can take your Griffin-badged beauty back to the gates of a working plant. Score!
Driving the Viva GT to Ellesmere from Luton is a trip home. Luton might be the spiritual and historic home of Vauxhall, but its ‘light’ cars – Vivas and Chevettes – were, and still are in the case of the Astra, built at Ellesmere. I’m taking this Red Rostyled rooster home then, so I should be on top of the world. I’m not though. Picking up the very last Luton based car from Vauxhall’s, once 70-strong, heritage collection seems like a retreat – it almost feels like I am taking the last bit of car-based soul from what was once the Motown of the south.
Faded glory
Today the Luton factory builds the Vivaro van.
The last cars to emerge from it were the Frontera in 2003 and the Vectra in 2002. Currently it employs around 900 people, a step down from the 30,000 that worked there at its height. I take the GT on a short journey from the Stockwood Park Discovery Centre where I have picked it up, past the current factory site. There’s a fair amount of activity, but it is a far cry from the plant I remember as a kid.
It was absolutely huge, a city in its own right. When the hooter went the town was gridlocked for half an hour, and every Lutonian had someone in their family that worked there. I park up next to the old administrative block, Griffin House. By the time it was vacated only a fraction of the building was still being used, but from the Sixties to the Noughties this is where Vauxhall ran its global operation. Cars were designed there, it’s where Wayne Cherry created his ‘droop snoots’. In fact, the design studios are still in the building and they are largely as Wayne left them. Ford’s spy team rented a flat in a nearby block in an effort to peer in to see what the Vauxhall team were up to (all true). But now the offices await demolition, along with the old Heritage Centre where the Viva GT was restored by Andy Boddy and Terry Forder, longtime guardians of the collection.
I get on the M1 before this all gets too emotional. Andy and Terry’s handiwork is still in fine fettle five years after completion. The slant-four is as lusty and the handling is as pliably exciting as when the Viva GT was being tested at Vauxhall’s own test track at Millbrook in the Sixties. The 1975 cubic centimetres still feel as if they are producing 112 horses, its ten seconds to 60mph time still possible, but like so many cars of the era, it could do with another gear – this HB runs out of relaxed revs at around 65mph.
By the time I reach Cheshire, I know I have been on a journey. The GT has been faultless, but relaxed high-speed cruising is not its forte. First stop is Manor Park Classics on the edge of Runcorn.
It is part auction house, part storage centre, part enthusiast drop-in centre… and, for now, Vauxhall’s chosen team to look after the heritage collection.
An unknown future
MPC is also in the process of auctioning off a number of the collection’s cars – part of a process of ‘downsizing’ it for display at a well-known museum venue. Passions have run high over this. The heritage collection is comprehensive and has cars from every decade of Vauxhall production – it is unique and precious. As an illustration of the commitment we Lutonians feel to the brand, after my visit to Manor Park, I bought one of the sell-off heritage cars myself, the final UK Frontera and the last car that was built at the Luton factory. Hopefully, one day, it will be part of a Vauxhall Museum… back in Luton.
For now though, a look around Manor Park Classics and a chat with the friendly team proves to me that they are well capable of looking after the collection until a more permanent home is found. Eight of the heritage cars are on display at Manor Park, the rest are at the Ellesmere Port factory – the place where the Viva GT was built – that is where we head next.
Ten miles under the wheels and we arrive at the main gate. As predicted we are let in and immediately I am struck by the sheer scale of the site. At 1.2 million square metres it is as big as Luton was at its height, although a number of the large factory blocks now lie dormant.
A left turn into one of them sees me driving across
the flat concrete floor under the gantries and supports that tell me this huge hall was once a serious place of work. I’m not wrong – this was the original engine shop, the place where the slant-four under the GT’S bonnet was put together. It’s come home to where it’s heart was made. The hall also houses the rest of the heritage collection; warm, dry and with Manor Park looking after the cars, this is a safe place to be for the time being.
When we visit, no one knows the future of the Ellesmere site – whether it will become a centre for electric vehicle production, or whether Stellantis will decide to let it go. The current Astra - the final British-built Vauxhall car - is out of production next year. Everyone is holding their breath.
In the blood – theirs and mine
I decide to break out and do my own factory tour with site guru, Ian Balmforth, as my guide. We head for the building that makes the latest Astra. On the day of our visit, Astra estates were rolling off the end of the production line every five minutes or so before being taken for a short test drive on a purpose built track – part of the pre-delivery inspection procedure. Obviously I can’t resist giving the Viva GT a go around the course, 52 years on from the first time it completed it.
A gaggle of workers have emerged to see the returning son. We park the Viva next to the latest car to emerge from production before following it round the track again and then down to the dispatch parking area. It’s emotional and I can feel the pride the workforce have in the cars they build today and the cars that came before. ‘My grandad would have built that,’ says one of the line workers… the sense of place and continuity is tangible. It can’t be underestimated, the depth of feeling that car plants inspire in the communities that surround them. These guys are Vauxhall through and through, and the Viva GT is one of theirs.
It still feels a bit bleak though. The factory is running way under its full capacity. A new electric car facility would see most of the historic factory demolished to make way for an ultra-modern building. It would be just what the area needs though, you can sense the anticipation; the hope.
Back in the old engine shop I help the guys from Manor Park as they go from car to car, checking each heritage vehicle for charge, fluids and then starting it up and running it to temperature before taking it for a short test drive. Most of the motors are behaving. I know many of these cars personally from previous features, press days and rallies.
The Vauxhall Heritage team was always ready to promote the brand and support journalists and TV people. This fleet was used as a touchstone for Britain’s oldest car brand – it really worked for a living, supported and promoted by the management
and in particular by Simon Hucknall, Vauxhall’s former PR activist. He, more than anyone, knew the value of heritage in stimulating popular interest.
I reacquaint myself with some old friends… the Victors I drove as taxis at Goodwood, the 1904 6HP I drove on the London to Brighton run, the Cavalier I piloted through the French Alps on one of the amazing Griffin Greats escapades, and the 10hp that I froze in during the VSCC Measham Rally and later piloted on a memorable tour of former WWII airfields. Then there are the Victors we lined up for a birthday shoot, the Lotus Carlton that scared my kids, the VXR220 Turbo that did the same and the 1938 BXL Limo that I took to London to be part of an English Heritage event, and which still has an operational clutch thanks to my ‘temporary’ fix using a hook I bought from B&Q and fitted on the drive at Eltham Palace. Great memories, great cars, living heritage: I hope its value continues to be recognised.
I decide to make a bee-line for the Ellesmere Port built classics… most of which are not particularly glamourous, but right here, right now, they are the only cars I want to drive. The opportunity to give them a short run around the factory that birthed them is too good to miss. So I do – from HA Viva to Astra F – this time I get the sense that the factory itself feels a sense of pride.
Then before bagging a lift back to Luton in a brand new Insignia (good car by the way) I say a fond farewell to the little Viva GT. It’s been such serious fun and a willing companion. It is a hot saloon that pre-dated the fast Escorts and, to my mind, possesses the same blue-collar-speedwagon spirit that still seemed like such a new idea a decade later. Great car and a great day. Now, let’s get a proper Vauxhall Heritage museum built so this unique collection can be celebrated properly.