Viva La Bedfordshire: It's Another Old Vauxhall

Yesterday we looked at a magnificently accessorised example of one of Vauxhall of Luton’s V-Bombers, the Victor estate. Today it’s the turn of that car’s little sister, the Viva, also appearing at Classics On The Quay, and again in that Hooniverse-friendly Longroof format.
The Viva was, I believe I’m right in saying, the very last car where Vauxhall were allowed to exercise their development muscle without being pressured to share their toys and play nice with Opel. Every subsequent car to wear the proud Griffon badge would have either some or most of its design in common with something from Germany.


First thing worth mentioning is that it’s a three-door Station Wagon, just like a Chevy Nomad. Instant cool-points right there. Viva could be had in a variety of flavours. There were two and four door sedans, a two-door coupé (Named Firenza) and this station wagon, which was oddly never released with more than two doors.
The front grille is pretty unlike anything else on the market back then. This mid-range 1800 model, powered by the same OHC engine as available in the bigger ’73 Victor, features the bright horizontal grille and square-ish headlamps that denoted that you were looking at a Viva, and not the more plush, more powerful, and more awesomely named Magnum.

Engine choices ran from 1159cc “1.2” and 1256cc “1.3” OHV, through this 1759cc unit and on to the 2279cc lump which, in fettled form, also provided motive power for the Firenza DroopSnoot, an example of which I enjoyed enormously back in 2013.

As was the vogue at the time, there are nods towards American style, including the slim rear lamp clusters (still pretty stylish for a ’70s British car) and the pronounced styling hump on the bonnet, which led to a nasal point almost like the rear end of a boat-tail Riviera.

Inside is a sea of beige with a strip speedometer which reminds me of the left and right channel VU meters on my ’79 Hitachi music centre. The auxiliary gauges at the bottom of the centre stack, including what looks to be a vacuum gauge, were a popular aftermarket choice back in the day, to remedy the rather sparse instrumentation found in many British family cars at the time.
Note the modern stereo unit… this model of Viva didn’t even come with a space to fit a radio. Hanging it under the passenger side of the dash and intruding into your co-pilots kneespace was probably the only workable installation option.

It seems impossible to relate this car to the New Viva, but it’s an interesting thing to ponder; what actually would be today’s equivalent of one of these?
(All images copyright Chris Haining / Hooniverse 2015)