Vauxhall

History

Vauxhall is one of the oldest names in the automotive world, founded in 1857 as a marine engineering firm that built pumps and engines for the Thames river trade. It moved into car production in 1903, and its sporting models of the 1910s, particularly the Prince Henry and later the 30-98, made Vauxhall a serious rival to Bentley in British club racing.

General Motors acquired Vauxhall in 1925, and the company became the British arm of a transatlantic operation, increasingly sharing its engineering with Opel in Germany. That relationship shaped the brand for most of a century: cars such as the Viva, Chevette, Cavalier and Astra were sold with Vauxhall or Opel badges depending on the market, while the Firenza and the Lotus-tuned Carlton and Lotus Omega gave the marque bursts of performance credibility. Vauxhall became one of Britain's largest car brands, building vehicles at Luton and Ellesmere Port for decades.

In 2017 General Motors sold Vauxhall and Opel to PSA, and the brands passed to Stellantis in 2021. The modern range is built on shared Stellantis platforms, and the Ellesmere Port plant was converted to build electric vehicles and vans.

Innovations

Vauxhall's early contribution was to British sports car engineering, with the 30-98 of 1913 regarded as one of the finest and fastest English cars of its time. The company was among the pioneers of the affordable sporting car and competed at Brooklands in the pre-war era.

Later, Vauxhall helped popularise mass-market features in Britain, and its connection to Opel produced notable performance machines including the Lotus-tuned Carlton and the VXR performance line. In the electric era the brand has become a volume seller of battery-electric cars and vans, including the Astra Electric and the electric vans built at Ellesmere Port.