The Vauxhall XVR is a concept car built in 1966 by

Vauxhall Vauxhall ( ) is a district in South West London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. Vauxhall was part of Surrey until 1889 when the County of London was created. Named after a medieval manor, "Fox Hall", it became well known for ...

. The name stands for ''eXperimental Vauxhall Research''. It debuted at the March 1966 Geneva Motor Show receiving favourable reviews from press, but never went into production.

Production

Three prototypes of the XVR were built in total. Two were

glassfibre Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...

rolling mockups with no engines, while one was a metal bodied, fully functional example, built by ''Motor Panels of Coventry''. The fully functional car was the one displayed at the

Geneva Motor Show The Geneva International Motor Show is an annual auto show held in March in the Swiss city of Geneva. The show is hosted at the Palexpo, a convention centre located next to the Geneva Cointrin International Airport. The Salon is organised by th ...

in March 1966. In total, the concept took five months to design and build. Only one of the mockups survives today, as Vauxhall crushed both the running prototype and the other mockup. The surviving car remains in the ownership of Vauxhall Motors and is currently on display at the ''British Motor Museum''.

Specifications

The lone fully functional XVR was powered by a front mid mounted 2.0 litre Vauxhall Slant4 Engine, producing around . The suspension was fully independent in the front and rear, and there were disc brakes at all four corners. The slant four engine was a pre-production model which was later used in the

Vauxhall VX4/90 The Vauxhall Victor is a large family car produced by Vauxhall from 1957 until 1976. The Victor was introduced to replace the outgoing Wyvern model. It was renamed Vauxhall VX Series in 1976 and continued in production until 1978, by which time ...

. The XVR was able to reach a top speed of over .

Design

The design team for the XVR was directed by David Jones and also included

Wayne Cherry Wayne K. Cherry (born 1937) is an American car designer educated at Art Center College of Design and employed by General Motors from 1962 through 2004, retiring as Vice President of Design. Cherry worked for General Motors in the United States fro ...

, John Taylor, Leo Pruneau, and Judd Holcombe. The looks were inspired by the concept car by Chevrolet, the Mako Shark II which was introduced in 1965. The design incorporates the Mako Shark's split windscreen, pop up headlamps, and gull wing doors.

References

{{Vauxhall Motors Cars introduced in 1966 Vauxhall concept vehicles Automobiles with gull-wing doors Front mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive vehicles