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Vauxhall celebrates heritage with new video

Published 10 December 2014

To mark the five millionth car rolling off the line at its Ellesmere Port factory, Vauxhall has released a video that celebrates its fantastic heritage.

You get to see tyre smoke from a Chevette HS2300, a Mk3 Astra GSi being put through its paces and a Firenza HP 'Droopsnoot' being handbrake turned – all in the name of quality control, of course.

Vauxhall began building small family cars at the Cheshire plant in 1964. Vivas, Chevettes and Astras have all been made at the factory, which celebrates its 50^th birthday this year.

The 1800-strong workforce is currently gearing up for production of the all-new Astra later next year. As the lead manufacturing plant in Europe for the new model, Ellesmere Port is taking on an additional 300 staff next month as part of a £140 million investment by parent company General Motors, which will secure the plant’s future into the middle of next decade.

Comments

ianpark on 15 December 2014

Wow this is the scariest thing I've seen for a long time, sales wise the Firenza was a grade A turkey, I'm not sure if sales even got into three figures! the Magnum coupe wasn't that much more successful either.However a fair few coupe bodies had been made so Vauxhall put out the Viva E which featured painted bumpers, a stripped out interior and cross-ply tires as well,eventually this cleared the glut of coupe bodies. But that wasn't the last we saw of the Firenza, a Magnum estate with the droop snoot was cobbled together in an attempt to attract some showroom traffic The Chevette was a truly dreadful creation using Opel Kadett's T series floorpan with the addition of a three door hatchback body style coupled with a sort of droop snoot front inspired by the Firenza, the whole rotten concoction had the Viva engine and later estate,saloon & van versions followed in due course. The one version that Luton didn't take was the rather smart coupe version, why the 2300HS engine wasn't put into this body as it was only a homologation special might have given it some distinction. Well what about today's Vauxhall production,only the Astra is made here everything else is imported, today's Astra is well sort of competent but it's not that exciting is it?

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Konner D Publik on 15 December 2014

So the Ford Focus is?
Or the Kia Cee'd is?
Or the Hyundai i30 is?
If the Astra was badged in the UK as an Opel we would be saying how great it was because its German.
The Great British public are mugs..

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ianpark on 15 December 2014

Well Herr Publik you won't find me arguing with you on that, what to me is even a greater con trick is the German manufacturers passing off their products as products of the Fatherland, so you've got BMW & Mercedes saloon cars being built in South Africa 4x4's being built built by good ol' boys in the former confederate states in Alabama and South Carolina in non union factories far away from the grip of the UAW. Also Porsche have also got into the act building Cayenne's alongside Touraegs & Audi Q7's in Slovakia. Well does it matter do you say? well yes I'm afraid it does it reduces what was a proud German manufacturer to the status of a fashion label, which I suppose is all that the status conscious brand stupid owners care about

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