Vauxhall Royale<\/a> stablemate. In November 1982, Opel facelifted the Senator as the A2, with a more streamlined body and a choice of 2.5 and 3.0-litre engines, both with improved fuel-injection. When UK sales began in 1983, there was to be no \u201cVauxhall Royale A2\u201d, as the parent company General Motors wanted to enhance its Opel marque\u2019s image in this country.<\/p>\nFive years earlier, buyers could choose an Opel equivalent for almost every Vauxhall \u2013 a Kadett instead of a Chevette, an Ascona instead of a Cavalier or a Rekord instead of a Carlton. By 1983, the only Opels sold in the UK were the Senator, its three-door fastback Monza stablemate and the Manta coup\u00e9. Opel was now a brand for sporting and luxury vehicles, aiming its products at the keen social climber.<\/p>\n
Motor found the flagship Senator 3.0 CD \u201ca more complete and accomplished package\u201d than the Audi 200E, even if they described its interior as having \u201cshades of Cavalier\u201d. The magazine also preferred the Opel to the Volvo 760 GLE and the Renault 25 V6.<\/p>\n
On October 17 1984, The Telegraph reported that: \u201cThe splendid Opel Senator saloons are now being badged as Vauxhalls, in deference to the susceptibilities of fleet operators with a notional \u2018Buy British\u2019 policy.\u201d As with all A2 and A1-series models, the new Vauxhall was built in Germany. However, the Luton-based firm\u2019s Griffin badge meant the Senator now appealed to police forces and business owners who shunned a \u201cforeign marque\u201d.<\/p>\n
And a 3.0i CD, such as John Hoare\u2019s 1984 example, had much to offer a buyer who could afford the necessary \u00a313,994, from its 180bhp engine to a 127mph top speed. Vauxhall boasted that the Senator\u2019s price compared favourably \u201cwith more mundane executive saloons\u201d \u2013 in other words, the CD was slightly cheaper than the Ford Granada Mk2 2.8i Ghia X at \u00a314,154.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Badge-engineering is the art of marketing the same car under a different brand name and convincing potential buyers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6946,453,8208,5152,18090,330,5,6,333,3575],"class_list":{"0":"post-36884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-automotive-industry","9":"tag-cars","10":"tag-chevrolet","11":"tag-classic-cars","12":"tag-made-in-britain","13":"tag-standard","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-us-content","17":"tag-vauxhall"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116577278533845026","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}