Vauxhall Victor FE Estate - the 70s classic transcontinental estate!

Video Description

Thank you so much to Tadhg of Moondream Vintage for lending this AWESOME estate. If you love vintage and especially vintage menswear, give his website a browse - https://moondreamvintage.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoqppSmJzgtk36AWSRRy6XTr1Xg8F5xcMgnUSXlK978QZDTlUEaN *** Vauxhall Victor FE Estate - the transcontinental estate To set the scene for you, when the FE Victor came to market, Vauxhall was in a very different position in the UK sales market as it is now. British Leyland and Ford held the top two spots in terms of market share and Vauxhall held a respectable third place. Vauxhall, keen to hold onto this position after fighting so hard for their market share in the 60s, had begun work on the FE design in the late 60s - inspired by American styling as so many brands in the UK would be come the 70s. The idea of the FE model was to compete in the upper-mid sales market, coming up against cars like Ford’s Corsair which although doesn’t make it to the same sales timeline, gives you insight into what kind of customer they wanted. Now at this point, it’s worth mentioning that Vauxhall is owned by General Motors at this point - who also own Opel. Opel have independently been working on their own offering for the new decade just around the corner and all the ideas come together. GM decide that whilst the styling of the FE is signed off, they’ll ditch the FD’s platform and replace it with the Opel V72 platform as used in the Rekord. They see what other manufacturers are doing such as Ford combining UK and German efforts and quietly make a few tweaks to the FE, bringing in the Rekord’s bulkheads, front door assemblies, front screen layout and other bits and pieces. Interestingly though they don’t carry over the rear quarterlights from the rear doors as seen in the Rekord - a miss in my opinion - despite that want for clean uncluttered styling. However, this Opel inclusion doesn’t take away from the early design ideas and in fact, the longer wheelbase and wider track gives rise to something a little extra: an attractive estate model. Dubbed the transcontinental to try and help sell into overseas markets, the car had a grand overseas launch and whilst journalists said it was good, especially compared to the outgoing model, they felt it fell short of setting the world alight when held up to the competition. Which is perhaps a failing of the marketing department for trying to sell it as something it wasn’t, for what it offers as a dependable all-rounder with comfortable surroundings and an ability to keep up with traffic in an attractive shell, is all a buyer needs in a car. Plus, the estate had a jolly good amount of space - 58 feet of cubic space with the rear seats folded down - more than enough space to make it worth choosing. There were several engines on offer for an FE Victor in the brochure from 1973 and you’ve got the 1256cc engine, 62.5bhp, the 1800cc which gave 90 bhp and the engine fitted to this particular model, which is the 2279cc engine which is referred to in this video as Vauxhall did as the 2.3 - which gave 122 bhp. In the literature for the estates given out at dealerships of the time of sale for this car, we only see two options for the estate which is the 1800 and the 2.3 as fitted here. It’s worth mentioning that the 1800 might’ve been overlooked by the buyer of this estate purely for the dud reviews of the time by What Car magazine - when it came up against competitors like the Marina, Maxi and Cortina it was found to be slowest of the bunch to do 0 to 60. However, it’s not all about speed and quality play a part too. Vauxhall had learnt from the mistakes of the early F Series Victor and the corrosion concerns and on this car, offered an 11 stage anti-corrosion treatment including complete underbody seal and chassis protected inside. As the suspension and handling, dubbed average by press but I think stands up well against competition of the time, it’s rack and pinion steering. suspension is coil spring with positively located rear axle with anti roll bars. Brakes are power assisted with discs at front and drums to rear. And when the range came to a close in the late 70s, it wasn’t a proper goodbye, because Hindustan motors in India obtained the rights to create the Hindustan Contessa…which is a whole other video in itself!