ALMOST EXTINCT – VAUXHALL CRESTA PC STANDARD

There is always a sense of excitement in finding a car you thought extinct in the UK. The single-headlamp Cresta PC Standard is such a car, as the most familiar version of the big Vauxhall was the twin headlamp De Luxe. The only time I had ever seen the entry-level model was in brochures or as a Cypriot police car in the extremely bad British horror film Incense for the Damned, in which it out-acted several members of the cast. Neil Haymer had a handsome 1966 example for sale.

The PC debuted at the 1965 Earls Court Motor Show. Vauxhall promised a car with “Dynamic Personality”, and a significant sales point was the latest Cresta’s ‘Coke Bottle’ styling – a ‘first’ for a Luton product. The fourth-generation Chevrolet Impala inspired those smart lines, and they made the Ford Zephyr/Zodiac Mk. III look like a relic of the Teddy Boy era by comparison. As with the outgoing PB-Series, power was from a 3.3-litre straight-six, but Luton dispensed with the Velox name, badging the cheapest version as the Cresta Standard.

Naturally, the brochures made much of the “Space Curve” styling and how the Cresta “offers you the best of modern motoring”. However, the Standard’s trim level made it immediately apparent that its intended market was fleet managers, County Constabularies, and taxi firm owners. Any commercial traveller who aspired to a company car with reversing lights, a cigar lighter, Ambla trim, a passenger vanity mirror, a rear folding armrest and a headlamp flasher had to work their way towards a De Luxe.

The PC was quite a favourite with the British motoring press, Autocar describing it as “a winner in the family car class”. Motor believed the Cresta suited the motorist who wanted to complete long journeys quickly “and in style”. Even Car magazine thought the PC was a “good, honest, safe, car”. But, alas, Vauxhall’s internal politics meant that they never built the replacement PD, and sales of the PC were in rapid decline by the early 1970s.

The Standard appears to have been a fairly uncommon sight in this country even before the PC production ended in 1972. And this makes the Cresta an object of great fascination. It is a car for the trunk roads and early motorway network, transporting its driver to the next sales appointment with the minimum of fuss. As Vauxhall once said, the Cresta had “Silk-smooth power to overtake”.

With thanks to – Neil Haymer.