Stars of The Lancaster Stand No. 1: Vivian the Vauxhall Viva HC

During the 2024 Practical Classics Classic Car and Restoration Show, one car on the Lancaster Insurance Stand evoked some entertaining reactions from the showgoers. Visitors to the NEC circled Annie Redshaw-Lloyd’s Glacier Blue Viva HC and peered into the vinyl-trimmed magnificence of its interior. So many of them uttered the words: “My dad/mum/grandparents used to have one of those.”

The HC was the longest-running Viva, with production lasting from September 1970 until July 1979. It was transport for commercial travellers and retirees alike, a second car for affluent households with a Ventora FE in the garage, and a first car for aspiring young professionals. Vivian’s blue coachwork is also reminiscent of one of the Viva HC’s most high-profile roles: police panda car.

Several other NEC visitors, including the editor of a very well-known monthly motoring title, seemed to find the HC reminding them of their driving lessons. Such was the Viva’s popularity with schools of motoring that in 1974 Vauxhall introduced the ‘DS’ – Driving School – version. That year Car may have rudely dismissed the Viva as “an old hack of a thing”, but sales remained strong.

Meanwhile, Vauxhall promised a Viva De Luxe such as Vivian represented “luxury motoring”, including equipment such as twin sun visors, radial-ply tyres, a heated rear window and “ashtrays both front and rear”. Equally importantly, the brochure claimed the HC’s “classic shape” was emphasised by “a neat coach stripe along the waist line.” After all, no owner investing £1,581 in a Viva De Luxe wanted their work colleagues to confuse it with a Viva Standard.

And should you wish to enhance the De Luxe’s specifications, the handy Vauxhall Approved Accessories catalogue offered the temptations of an “Anti-Dazzle Mirror”, “Reverse Lamps”, “Lockable Petrol Cap” or – to impress your friends and neighbours – “Mud Flaps”.

And the fact that Vivian looks much as she did in 1975 only enhances her appeal. Many HCs were subject to customisation of varying degrees of awfulness, but she is the epitome of the sort of Viva that dominated the UK’s roads in the mid-1970s. Every detail, from the wheel trims to the strip speedometer, evokes memories of when David Essex topped the hit parade with Hold Me Close and BBC2 screened The Goodies.

Above all, Vivian demonstrated that a car need not be expensive or exotic to create a stir at the NEC. Throughout the event, she was the object of curiosity from young people who had never before seen a Viva, and the source of amazement from older visitors with vivid memories of HC motoring.

As Vauxhall once said of the Viva HC: “It’ll stay in style for years.”

With thanks to: Annie Redshaw-Lloyd