Killed Off For Looking Bland?

While making the motoring public and press aware of the many benefits and features of their new executive model, there was little column space given to the fact that the birth of the Insignia bought about the death of one of Vauxhall's longer-term vehicles: the Vectra.

It could almost be suggested that the Vectra was being done away with quietly, like a mistake being hastily swept under the carpet of the stained-seat-cushion swiftly overturned while nobody was looking. Why, though? There wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with the Vectra, was there?

The simplest answer is that the Vectra was killed off because, to paraphrase a great film, its looks had become a problem. Was there so much shame in its design that Vauxhall killed off the name altogether?

The original incarnation looked pretty good for a rep-mobile, something that looked like a natural evolution of the Cavalier, though sharper and more poised and a slightly more aggressive looking car to its rival Mondeo.

Then they went and fudged it up by taking design cues from a boating show. From 2002, the 'design' of the Vectra deserved the air-quotes. On a personal note, a colleague of mine at the time had one of these accountant-mobiles and when asked about his new motor he'd always say "oh it drives really well" and skirt around the looks.

Granted, given that it looked like it should be colliding with icebergs in the Atlantic, it did drive really well, but if even the Vectra's owners were finding ways not to talk about its looks they should've question their design team.

How big an impact did the then-new Vectra's looks have? It went from being the fourth biggest selling car in the country to only once breaking into the top ten sellers. A significant drop considering this was during a relative boom period for car sales, pre-recession and oil crisis.

So the Vectra got a facelift but like a celebrity that goes away for a little while and comes back with a brand-new face and 'image' the results were only fleeting. The impact that the new-look had had on the second-generation of Vectra were fatal for the name.
Surely even an Italian-designed coupe with the Vectra badge would now suffer from association?

This may well be the realisation or thought that was echoing around the hallowed halls of General Motors when trying to decide how to regain their ground in the executive car market. The result: Vauxhall are no longer making the Vectra.

In place of the Vectra, Vauxhall launched the Insignia with much song and dance accompanied fanfare in London in 2008 and rolled it out across dealers in 2009 just as it was named European Car of the Year. Though, to its credit, the Vectra had been named Estate of the Year in 2007.

It would be harsh to call the Vectra ugly given how many awful car designs have hit the roads, perhaps "lacking an edge" is a more appropriate description. Yet while it certainly didn't look exceptional it really did handle well and was an extremely comfortable cruiser and gobbled up motorway miles like they were nothing. Though the only way to find this out now is to get hold of a used Vectra instead as dealers are still letting them sit out on their forecourts, they can't be that bad looking, then.

Seed Newsvine

Bookmark this article in your preferred program

Comments

Add Comment

Popular Articles in this cathegory

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.