IDRIVEACLASSIC reviews: Vauxhall Chevette

Today's video is on the lesser spotted Vauxhall Chevette! The car has been kindly loaned by Great British Car Journey in Derbyshire. To find out more about them, visit their website: https://greatbritishcarjourney.com

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The Vauxhall Chevette

Made for a solid 9 years, from 1975 until 1984, the Vauxhall Chevette is a car which was once a common sight on the roads of the UK, but is now so rarely spotted you’ll be hard pushed to remember the last time you saw one out on the road and not tucked up at a museum or on display at a car show.

Whilst the vehicle didn’t launch until 1975, work had begun at General Motors in 1970 on a new car model platform called the T Car platform. The idea was simple: the sub-brands like Vauxhall owned by GM across the globe would offer a standardised platform.

You see this a lot nowadays, think Skoda Citigo and VW Up, it’s pretty normal, back in the 70s, this was a totally new way of thinking.

Vauxhall were obviously bound into this by the parent company GM, but were adamant the buying public wanted a hatchback. The team at luton then took the T car platform and took 11 inches from the rear of the car, fitted a hatchback and then popped in a box-section crossmember to compensate for that loss of rigidity.

To complement this new hatchback, the shovel-nose front end styling from the Firenza was pinched and so was born a car which looked like nothing Vauxhall had put out before.

Whilst the styling was fresh, the engine wasn’t. The engine was pulled straight from the old Viva which had come before it and it was the 1256cc 56.5bhp engine. Although it was an old unit, which some reviewers felt could’ve been refreshed to match the fresh styling, it wasn’t slow and did zero to 60 in 15 and a seconds, with a top speed of 90 miles per hour. If you’re wondering about the transmission unit, that was pinched from the Viva too, but what’s the point in developing new transmission to match an old engine if there aren’t any major problems?

Whilst the engine choices weren’t expanded, the body shapes were and the Chevette would-be buyer by 1976 got more than the hatchback at launch and could now choose from varying specs on the hatchback in base, E and L later to be joined by GL and GLS. Then there was a three door hatchback, two and four door saloons, an estate and of course, the awesome Chevanne.

The car was a big hit with everyone from driving schools for the ease of the drive coupled with the great visibility through to van drivers buying wholeheartedly into the Chevanne. It’s no wonder it bolstered those Vauxhall sales for so long.

Keen to keep the buyers interested in the car, in late 79 changes were made to the exterior and the vehicle got headlamps flush with the body like you see on the car we’re testing and in 81, an economy model was introduced to fight the Fiesta and new British market share grabber, the Austin Metro city.

The car in theory, should’ve left the sales forecourt much earlier than 1984 when the newer models like the Astra came on sale, but instead ran alongside it for the last few years of production. The car ended up being replaced by the popular Nova.