Like most classic car enthusiasts, we love the sporty, the exotic, the elegant, and the outright outrageous – who doesn’t? We go weak at the knees at the sight and sound of a Lamborghini Miura, Porsche 911 2.7RS, a Gordon Keeble, or maybe a BMW 3.0CSL – well, I most certainly do anyway.
Any excuse to show pictures of these fabulous machines.
But we also love the everyday, the mundane, the humdrum, the plain ordinary classics – indeed, as we keep saying, our mantra here at ViaRETRO is “Any classic is better than no classic”. One of our favourite events – which we sincerely hope will return next year – is the Festival of the Unexceptional, which, together with it’s Concours d’Ordinaire, celebrates the regular cars that our parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts drove back in the day. Every now and then we find a gem of this kind, and we think our Prime Find this week is definitely one of those gems.
Back in 1970, Opel introduced the Ascona A, a 2 and 4-door family saloon that was a considerable success in its native German market, with almost 700,000 produced over a five-year period.
Ascona A………………………….and Ascona B
It was succeeded in 1975 by the Ascona B, again as a 2 or 4-door, and this was even more successful, with 1.2million sold. While there was no Vauxhall version of the Ascona A, by the mid-1970’s there was more and more overlap between the two General Motors companies and in 1975 Vauxhall’s version of the Ascona B was launched – the Cavalier. The Cavalier was in fact so similar to the Ascona that only the front end was changed, using the nose of the Manta B, a move designed solely to keep costs down, and for a while, the two cars were built at the same factory in Antwerp. However, demand for the Cavalier in the UK was strong enough to warrant additional production at Vauxhall’s Luton plant in 1977.
It was initially made available with 1584cc and 1896c engines, with the last of these upgraded to 1979cc in 1978 with an entry level 1256cc powerplant introduced at the same time, and the usual status-defining badges – L, LS, GL, and GLS, closely mirroring Ford and BL trim and equipment levels.
A stylish 2-door coupé to rival the Ford Capri was launched alongside the saloon, but replaced in 1978 by the Sports Hatch – based on the Manta B – personally, I prefer the coupé (can’t remember the last time I saw one) but both models were stylish additions to the range.
The Cavalier Mk1 was the first car to challenge the Ford Cortina’s supremacy in the UK’s corporate car market, initially taking on the Cortina MkIII, then IV and for a short time, the MkV head on with some success, and it was viewed as considerably better than the other main alternatives in that sector, primarily BL’s Morris Marina, and Chrysler’s Alpine. It has to be said that the bar was not set particularly high…
The motoring press – and buying public – took kindly to the Cavalier, praising it’s performance and handling, judging the Vauxhall to be far superior to both the Cortina and Marina as a driver’s car, something which gave it added appeal to the road-warrior sales reps covering 20,000 to 40,000 miles a year. There were some problems with reliability, and initially with supply, but the latter problem was resolved when UK production came on stream.
These medium-sized family saloons dominated the corporate car market for many years and were bought and sold in their hundreds of thousands, if not millions. And yet, thanks to a combination of the demon rust and government-sponsored scrappage schemes, very few of these common-or-garden cars survive today, so when we find one like this week’s Prime Find, it’s quite exciting, even if you could argue that the car isn’t, really.
So what have we found? Well, it’s a 1980 – so quite late – Cavalier 2000GLS saloon, basically the top of the range, and it’s being auctioned at the end of October by South Western Vehicle Auctions in Poole, Dorset.
There are a number of things that make this find “prime.”
One – it’s a Cavalier Mk1, in and of itself notable for its relative scarcity after being sold in such numbers. With regards to the 2000GLS specifically, it’s not clear how many remain on the road in the UK but I would wager it’s fewer than 100, so it’s pretty exclusive these days.
Two – it has the most powerful engine available for the Cavalier, producing 100bhp, enough to propel it to a top speed of 105mph and a 0-60 time of 10seconds, matching the equivalent Cortina MkIV 2.0.
Three – it’s a GLS, meaning it’s top of the office status league and has exclusive items such as a tachometer and Rostyle-type wheels as standard that set it apart from the common herd of Cavlaiers, although by current standards it looks pretty austere.
Four – it comes in a terrific exterior/interior colour combination, with orange paintwork and pale brown (or dark beige if you prefer) velour upholstery, and let’s not forget the smart-looking black vinyl roof! The bodywork looks good and it’s claimed that the car has never been welded (though I’m not convinced by this as any proof of condition).
Five – considering most Cavaliers were driven many thousands of miles a year, this one has been barely used, with the odometer reading a warranted 40,960 miles only. There were many Cavaliers that covered such a mileage within a year back in the car’s heyday. The reason for this low mileage is that this was a second car for the original owner, who had a company car to thrash the backside off from Monday to Friday, and this Cavalier was used primarily for weekends and occasional trips only.
Six – this GLS has had only two owners in it’s 40-year lifespan, has been always been garaged when not in use, and has recently been subjected to some recommissioning and a respray in its original colour.
Seven – the price! I know that any car bearing the names Vauxhall and Cavalier doesn’t rank high on the collectability scale, but with all the above taken into consideration, the estimate of just £1,900 to £2,500 seems very low to me. I can find just a couple of other Mk1 Cavaliers on sale in the UK – a 1600GL saloon and a Sports Hatch, both of them at twice the price, so it’ll be very interesting indeed to see what the car fetches when it goes under the hammer on October 30th. As an entry-level classic, I would have thought this Cavalier would be very hard to beat, and would surely – if the pictures and description are any reliable guide, though as always we recommend prior inspection – be a contender at the Festival of the Unexceptional.
As per our usual practice, we have borrowed a few photos from the auctioneer’s website – you can see the full lot description here, as well as a video tour of the car here.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us be inspired by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro.co.uk