The Vauxhall Viva is a small family car that was produced by Vauxhall in a succession of three versions between 1963 and 1979. These were designated the HA, HB and HC series.
The Viva was introduced a year after Vauxhall's fellow General Motors company Opel launched the Opel Kadett A. Both cars were a result of the same General Motors project sharing the same floorpan and engine construction. A major difference was the use of metric measurements for the Opel and Imperial units for the Vauxhall. The cars are visually similar, however few components are interchangeable. A van version was also produced, as the Bedford HA. In the UK the Viva's principal competitors at the time of its launch included the well-established Ford Anglia and Morris Minor.
The third generation HC series was the last solely Vauxhall designed passenger car when ceasing production in 1979. Although it was not the last Vauxhall designed vehicle to go out of production overall – that distinction belongs to the Bedford CF van. After the Viva range, General Motors Europe unified the Opel and Vauxhall brands around a single range of Opel-developed models.
Vauxhall revived the Viva nameplate from 2015 to 2019 on a rebadged variant of the fourth generation Opel Karl/Chevrolet Spark.
HA Viva (1963–1966)
The HA Viva, announced in September 1963, and replaced in September 1966, was Vauxhall's first serious step into the compact car market after World War II. It was also the first new small car produced by Vauxhall since 1936. The HA Viva was powered by a , overhead valve, four cylinder, front-mounted engine driving the rear wheels. It was comparable in size and mechanical specifications with the new Opel Kadett released a year earlier in continental Europe, being a result of the same project — with the two cars sharing much of their inner structure and similar overall dimensions. The Viva and Kadett were sold alongside each other in many markets. The HA Viva was just an inch longer than the Ford Anglia which dated back to 1959. It was offered only as a two-door saloon, and competed with the Anglia as well as BMC's hugely successful and highly regarded new 1100 range.
The HA set new standards in its day for lightweight, easy to operate controls, a slick short gearchange, lightweight steering and clutch pedal, good all-round visibility and relatively nippy performance. It was one of the first cars to be actively marketed towards women, perhaps as a result of these perceived benefits for them.
The front crossmember (steering, suspension and engine mounting) assembly from the HA became a very popular item for DIY hot rod builders in the UK, due to its simple self-contained mechanics, similar to older designs such as those from the 1930s, and ability to accommodate much larger engines within its span. The assembly featured a double wishbone/vertical telescopic dampers suspension design in combination with a transverse leaf spring attached to the front crossmember at its centre position and the entire unit could be removed and adapted to another vehicle. (For similar reasons the Jaguar independent rear suspension assembly was often used at the rear of these custom cars). The Viva's rear suspension made do with conventional longitudinal semi-elliptic leaf springs and telescopic dampers. The progressive suspension including a very clever mounting design for the rear axle and the transverse leaf system of the front suspension led to a soft ride on small bumps but with very acceptable roll characteristics on corners along with its precise steering and small turning circle.
In Canada, the HA was sold as the Vauxhall Viva by Pontiac/Buick dealers and also as the Envoy Epic by Chevrolet/Oldsmobile dealers, and was second in sales to the Volkswagen Beetle amongst imported compact cars. In France (and Algeria and Tunisia), the car was marketed as the Vauxhall Epic.
The Viva was initially launched in Standard and Deluxe versions, identifiable by their simple horizontal slatted metal grilles. Minor changes in September 1964 included improved seats and more highly geared steering. A more luxurious SL (for Super Luxury) variant appeared in June 1965. The SL differed from the base models by a relatively elaborate grille and, normally, by a painted strip along the side of the car. Unlike the base model with its unique tail lamp design, the SL featured a horizontal row of three plain, round Lucas parts-bin lamps, not unlike the vertical arrangement employed on Singer Gazelle cars of that era. Engines were available in two states of tune: entry-level models came with a power output of , while the Viva 90, introduced in October 1965, had a higher 9:1 compression ratio and produced . The availability of two engines and three trim options enabled Vauxhall to offer six Viva variants in some markets. 90 models came with front disc brakes, while SLs featured contrasting bodyside flashes, a criss-cross chrome plated front grille, full wheel covers, three-element round tail lights and better interior trim.
During its first ten months, over 100,000 HA Vivas were made, and by 1966 the HA had chalked up over 306,000 sales, proving that Vauxhall had made a successful return to the small-car market, which they had abandoned following the Second World War. One measure of the success is the fact that a budget was made available to design the car's successor with a virtually clean sheet. The Viva HB inherited engines, but little else, from the HA. 309,538 Viva HAs were produced.
The HA, however, suffered severely from corrosion problems along with other Vauxhall models of the time and very few of this model remain – one of the main problem areas being the cappings along the top side edges of the luggage compartment badly corroding and allowing water to enter, consequently leading to severe structural corrosion in the luggage-compartment floor area. As with a lot of other British cars of that period, many Vivas failed to survive long term.
The HA Viva was assembled in Australia by Holden commencing in 1964, and in New Zealand by General Motors at Petone. New Zealand built only the Deluxe model and a few base versions for government fleet contracts.
Bedford HA
A van version was marketed as the Bedford HA and was offered in 6 cwt, 8 cwt and, from 1972, 10 cwt variants. It differed from the saloon in being taller, and thousands were bought by the GPO (later British Telecom), their bright yellow HA vans becoming a common sight. The HA Van was eventually supplanted by the Chevanne, but because of fleet orders, particularly from British Telecom, British Rail and the Post Office, the HA van remained in production, ultimately using the later HC Viva's engine and gearbox, all the way through to 1983.
Bedford Beagle
Although no factory built estate versions of the HA Viva were offered, a limited-production estate conversion by Martin Walter Ltd. of Folkestone, based on the closely related Bedford HA van, was marketed as the Bedford Beagle.
HB Viva (1966–1970)
The HB Viva, announced in September 1966 and sold by Vauxhall until 1970, was a larger car than the HA, featuring coke bottle styling, and was modelled after American General Motors (GM) models such as the Chevrolet Impala/Caprice of the period, and was a solely Vauxhall design — likewise Opel had also developed the equivalent Opel Kadett B with no platform sharing, unlike the previous generation. It featured the same basic engine as the HA, but enlarged to 1,159 cc, but with the added weight of the larger body the final drive gearing was reduced from 3.9 to 1 to 4.1 to keep the nippy performance (except the SL90 which retained the 3.9 diff having the power to cope with the higher ratio).
The automatic Viva HB was offered from February 1967, and fitted with the ubiquitous Borg Warner Type 35 system. Cars of this size featuring automatic transmission were still unusual owing to the amount of power the transmission systems absorbed: a major British motoring journal later described Viva HBs with automatic transmission as "among the slowest cars on the road".
The HB used a completely different suspension design from the HA, having double-wishbone and coil springs with integrated telescopic dampers at the front, and trailing arms and coil springs at the rear. Lateral location and anti-squat of the rear axle was achieved using upper trailing arms mounted at approximately 45° fixed to lugs at the top of the differential. Both front and rear could also be fitted with optional anti-roll bars. The HB set new standards for handling in its class as a result of the adoption of this suspension design, where many of its contemporaries stuck with leaf springs and MacPherson struts.
This time, apart from the standard and 90 stages of tune, there was also, for a brief time, a Brabham SL/90 HB that was purported to have been developed with the aid of world racing champion Jack Brabham. Brabham models were marked out externally by distinctive lateral black stripes at the front of the bonnet that curved down the wings and then headed back to end in a taper at the front doors. This model is almost impossible to find today. This model and the Viva GT are the two most sought after models made. The Brabham model differed from the standard Viva SL/90 in having a different cam-shaft, uprated suspension with anti-roll bars, different exhaust manifolds, and a unique twin-carb manifold, as well as differing interior trim. The Viva GT had substantially different engine and running gear and interior from the standard Viva HB models. It was distinguished by having a black bonnet with twin louvres and being all-over white. Later GTs came in different colours.
Two larger overhead camshaft engines from the larger Vauxhall Victor were also offered – a twin carb 1975 cc in the Viva GT from Feb 1968 and a 1599 cc making up the Viva 1600 from May 1968.
With the expanded engine programme, the HB saw numerous permutations of model offerings, with base, deluxe and SL trims offered with a choice of standard 1.2, tuned 90 1.2, Brabham 90 1.2 and the aforementioned overhead cam units offered during its run. The Brabham was effectively replaced by the 1600, although many complained of high fuel consumption with this engine. Front disc brakes came with the 90 and overhead cam engine models, while a larger 12 gallon fuel tank was also part of the 1600 and GT package.
The brakes were problematic: a 1971 survey of passenger cars registered in Sweden during 1967 place the HB Viva at the top of a list of cars identified as having faulty brakes as part of an annual testing procedure. Problems were concentrated on uneven braking and dragging brakes, generally at the rear, and affected 26% of the cars tested. Second on the list, with 24% of cars triggering brake fault reports, was the similarly configured Opel Kadett estate. Although it avoided the bottom spot in other individual categories, the poor score achieved by the brakes left the Viva with the highest overall rate of failure of the 34 passenger cars included in sufficient numbers to feature in the reports of the Swedish test results.
Originally offered as just a two-door saloon, a three-door estate joined the HB range in June 1967, but the advent of the four-door in October 1968 saw the HB breaking sales records worldwide. The introduction of the four-door option coincided with various minor improvements to the interior trim, while 'auxiliary' switches were relocated from a remote panel to positions nearer to the steering wheel. The GM "energy absorbing" steering column was now fitted to all models and the fuel tank capacity was increased from 8 to 12 British gallons (36 to 55 litres). The 4-door saloon was designed and engineered by Holden in Australia who exported it as a kit of parts back to Vauxhall in England.