Frenzied scuffing, scrabbling and screeching marked the start of the hot Vauxhall power bonanza, this the sound of a 1988 Astra GTE’s front tyres being flayed alive.
Grinding them to dust was easy with the 16-valve red-top engine (its spark plugs were crowned with a blood-red cover), whose superb Cosworth cylinder head extracted 156bhp and 150lb ft from 2.0 litres, that torque figure making short work of your tread blocks.
Thirty Love: Revisiting the Lotus Carlton after three decades
There were hot Vauxhalls before the second-gen Astra GTE, of course, from Victor VX 4/90s and Viva GTs to Cavalier SRis and Nova SRs. But the red top marked the point when Vauxhall’s fastest routinely offered fat slabs of power and torque, fired roadwards with an abandon rarely impeded by dynamic finesse.
The cars improved as Astra VXRs romped towards a mighty 300bhp, the last VXR GTC fast-laning motorways with surprising civility. Most VXRs, though, are like a night out on Jåger bombs, the intense burst of euphoria burning out with your tyres.
A happy exception was the rare Corsa VXR Nürburgring, which could slice up a track almost as keenly as a RenaultSport Clio and ride a bump with panache. If many hot Vauxhalls have failed to achieve the full boil of fast Fords, occasionally Luton shakes us with a startling, superheated machine. Like the arrow-nosed 1973 Firenza HP (aka droopsnoot), the rampant Chevette HS, the slickly re-imagined Lotus Elise that was the VX220 and an array of rare, rebadged Holden saloons and coupés that often impressed deeply with their V8 thump and unexpectedly balletic suspensions.
You could never accuse Vauxhall of not trying. The company has persistently attempted to top Ford, Volkswagen, Renault and the rest with its hot hatches and, sometimes, it has got achingly close. But for the very best high-velocity Vauxhalls, you must look to the maddest, from Firenza to Lotus Carlton to VXR8. Here’s hoping that the PSA Group allows Opel, the brand behind all these cars, to go mad again.
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In pictures: the cars of the Vauxhall Heritage Collection
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I had a day with Vauxhall around this time, at the big test track in Bedfordshire.
My favourites were a beautifully balanced Nova, small but nicely formed.
The Calibra was smooth and svelte, quiet and rock-solid on the banking.
The Carlton was excellent, but I was a three-door coupe lover at the time, so the Calibra earned my vote.
The issue with GM was that the cars they were based on were not made with any driving enthusiasm to begin with. The Astra GTE 16v 150 bhp was a revelation at the time however autocar said it had "steering so wispy only a drag car driver could love it", this is at the time of the R5gt turbo 205Gti citroen axGT, Ford XR3/RS turbo and the mk2 golf gti. So not well engineered vehicles even when "they put their minds to it" they couldn't came up with something special so no I don't think their hot cars deserve any special place in history except the 150bhp/16v engine which was a game changer. I had an Omega 2.5 elite for a few years and I can testify to the crap that it was underneath, the VXR would have needed a lot of work to take that vehicle to the engineering level of 5 series of the time.
Unfortunately most people with money now won't spend it on a good car if it doesn't have a German brand name.