Description
Author: Eric Dymock, Hardbound, 384 Pages, ISBN: 9780955490903 - Second Edition, 2007, 2nd hand book in very good condition.
After its takeover by General Motors in 1927 Vauxhall was able to stop competing with Roll-Royce, Bentley and Napier. It went over instead to popular models, pioneering syncrmesh gearboxes, unitary bodies, and the famous knee-action independent front suspension
The Cadet, Light Six, Big Six, and later 10-Four, I 2-Four, and I 4-Six were family cars of genteel respectability. Up-market of Morris and Austin they were about a match for Wolseley and Rover, and with mid-Atlantic styling saw Vauxhall through World War II. Velox, Cresta, Victor, and Viva were inscribed in the motoring lexicon as Vauxhall returned to motor racing through Dealer Team Vauxhall. and later VXRacing winners of the British Touring Car Championship.
The concentration of GM European design in Germany might have spelled the end of Vauxhall, except for vigorous support in a UK market reluctant to embrace Opel. Yet only the arrival of the Opel-engineered Cavalier in 1975 saved the Vauxhall name and kept the home fires burning, first at Luton and then Ellesmere Port. The Merseyside factory even made Opels for export. The lengthening list of models required this second edition of The Vauxhall File to bring the comprehensive tally up to date.
Motoring correspondent of The Sunday Times for fourteen years, Eric Dymock trained as an engineer in Glasgow and worked in the motor trade, before joining the road test staff of The Motor. He covered grand prix motor racing for The Guardian and The Observer until 1980 contributed to Thames Television and BBC motoring programmes, The Times, Financial Times, and Daily Telegraph. His motoring columns appeared in Town, Scottish Field, Scotland on Sunday and The Business. Winner of four Jet Media Excellence Awards, the Guild of Motoring Writers' Montagu Award, and the Jim Clark Memorial Award for 2004.
Eric Dymock's books include biographies of Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark, The Guinness Guide to Grand Prix Motor Racing, Post-war Sports Cars, The Sprites and Midgets, definitive histories of BMW, Saab, Rover, and Honda in the UK and his own Dove imprint File books.
