They’re hard to find these days – but it’ll be worth the search, says James Walshe
WHAT TO PAY
PROJECT £500-£2k
GOOD £2k-£5k
EXCELLENT £5k-£10k
TECH SPEC
ENGINE 1897cc/4-cyl/OHV
POWER 100bhp@5400rpm
TORQUE 113lb ft@3800rpm
GEARBOX Four-speed manual
TOP SPEED 106mph
0-60MPH 9.2sec
FUEL ECONOMY 31mpg
LIVING WITH A CAVALIER
HOW EASY TO WORK ON
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PARTS AVAILABILITY
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RUNNING COST
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PERFORMANCE
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Why you want one
How on earth can it be that so few Cavalier MkIs survive, given that they built nearly a quarter of a million of the things?
One imagines it has something to do with their reason for existing in the first place. Used extensively by sales reps, Cavaliers spent much of their lives blasting up and down drizzly motorways during the week, then performing family duties at weekends. Yet, like so many other Vauxhalls, criminally few were preserved.
Facing almost impossibly stiff competition from a Ford marketing department obsessively battering Vauxhall during the Seventies, it’s no wonder. Car magazine was complimentary at the time, preferring the look of the griffin-badged cars and suggesting the Cavalier had ‘superior performance to match its high standard of roadholding and handling’. It’s hard to disagree.
Which one do you want?
You certainly won’t be spoilt for choice, because there are fewer than 400 survivors. What you will find among that select band is a range of twoor four-door saloons and a two-door coupé with four-cylinder engine capacities of either 1256cc, 1584cc, 1897cc or 1979cc.
At the bottom of the range was the ‘L’, with period brochures boasting of reclining front seats and twin sun visors as standard, and options including an automatic gearbox and metallic paint. The GL badge got you velour seats, extra sound insulation and a clock, while top of the pile was the GLS Coupé. A 2.0-litre unit replaced the 1.9 in March 1978, which is when Vauxhall introduced the sports hatch version of the coupé with its usefully large hatchback opening (these two sporty versions would eventually lose their Vauxhall branding to become the Opel Manta).
MARKET ANALYSISMARKET ANALYSIS
As you’d expect, it’s highly unlikely you’ll stumble over a first-generation Cavalier on eBay, so you’ll need to join the Cavalier and Chevette Club for the best chance of finding what you’re after.
The handsome Coupé appears to be in most demand, so expect to pay a little more. An immaculate example sold for £17,000 at Mathewsons a while back, but don’t be put off –they’re not normally that expensive.
Despite its extra practicality, the sports hatch isn’t so so
