Vauxhall recently celebrated 50 years of production at its Ellesemere Port assembly plant in Cheshire by recreating the press image of the first car to ever leave the facility rolling off of the production line. The first car to be produced at Ellesmere Port was the Viva HA, the first of which was built on June 1, 1964.
Ellesmere Port produced the Viva nameplate in multiple different iterations and variants until 1978, when it was replaced by the Chevette. Soon after in 1981 the first Astra was built at the plant, a nameplate which has since become the automaker’s best seller.
The plant was recently threatened with closure, but thanks to the determination of the workforce and management team, Ellesmere Port managed to secure production of the next-generation Astra hatchback, effectively guaranteeing its survival into the next decade.
Comments
Congrats lads on a job well done – the second most efficient GM plant in Europe and number 3 worldwide on GM’s quality index – a fantastic achievment.
Actually even Vauxhall got the press release wrong, the Viva wasn’t replaced by the Chevette the 2 models ran side by side for 4 years it was just that when Viva production ended in 1979 it left only the Chevette being produced at the plant until production of the Astra MK1 joined it there in 1981 and then the Chevette production stopped in 1983 leaving just the Astra.