How to design a new Vauxhall - an Autocar exclusive

“One thing we’re reminded of is just how cyclical the car business is. Back at the end of the 1980s, as BL’s reign was ending, we were vying with Renault for 16% of the UK market – pretty different from today for both of us. We were making great cars and doing very well. That’s our first lesson: we’re at our best when we’re confident and there’s a modernity, a sense of stretch, about the products. We want to re-create that.”

Britishness has been much discussed, says Hope, and is seen as a very important Vauxhall asset (“we only sell on this island, so we can build a great sense of proximity to the customer”) but there was also much discussion about exactly how you portray it.

“Britishness is Danny Boyle and James Dyson,” he explains. “It’s the Tate Modern. It’s the Queen jumping out of a helicopter to open London’s Olympic Games. What it isn’t is thatched cottages and red postboxes and Hugh Grant being a little bit apologetic. It’s bold and progressive, the sort of Britishness British people want...”

Adams’ positioning talk is similar, but different. Whereas Hope’s concern is improving Vauxhall’s status and sales inside the UK, Adams’ task is to shape a vehicle that will “sharpen” both Vauxhall’s and Opel’s brand values – for a new owner in an environment that’s transforming itself. It’s an assignment he calls “a once-in-a- career project for all of us”.

Adams starts by noting the many similarities between the best points of contemporary British and German design. It’s in his interest, you might say, given that this concept must be as much Opel as Vauxhall. But his evidence is strong: it’s almost eerie how the love of elegant simplicity of Braun designer Dieter Rams parallels that of Apple’s British designer Jonathan Ive. The German love of evolution, purity and precision (Porsche 911) sits very neatly with the British values of Harry Beck (designer of the 1932 London tube map), of James Dyson (“whoever thought a vacuum cleaner could be iconic?”) and of Colin Chapman (“simplify, then add lightness”). Adams’ case is convenient to the project but no less compelling for that.

One impression: for all the new-dawn and “sharpening” talk surrounding this new concept, you can’t help being impressed by the faithfulness to these principles of two recent Vauxhall-Opel offerings, the Geneva 2016 two-seat Opel GT concept and the Frankfurt 2013 Opel Monza Concept four-seater, both of which seem already to point in directions that Adams now wants to explore further. Next stop for our little party is Vauxhall’s Heritage Centre, a 75-car collection run by two full-time Vauxhall technicians behind the main Luton admin building. “To understand what you want to take forward,” explains Adams as we troop across the car park, “you’ve got to understand what you did previously that was good. We’ve had periods of greatness, but there were times when what we did was forgettable...”

We centre on two products, both concept sports cars, even though I’m getting the strong feeling that Adams reckons the new project should be some kind of big saloon...

The tiny, beautiful 1966 XVR sports car concept would make anyone’s timeless list. It would look beautiful if unveiled today, what with its petite shape, arrow nose, tailored wheel arches containing beautiful wheels that reach the body’s very extremities, its radical long-bonnet, short-boot proportions and its beautiful surfacing.

Then our eye falls on the ultra- low, more angular SRV concept from 1970, a four-seater despite the small size, powered by a transverse powertrain mounted behind its four easily accessed seats. “These two teach us about future-proofing,” says Adams. “They look as great as ever.” Other Vauxhall models standing around make a supporting point about timeless appeal: a Droop Snoot Firenza HP from 1973 (whose promising career was killed by the fuel crisis) and the sleek 1989 Calibra that never got the credit it deserved.

Back in the Luton boardroom, Adams runs through the (remarkably few) guidelines his designers are using on the new concept. Our man Ben takes close note: that’s his design you can see on the right. My view:if they make it like that, they won’t go too far wrong. There’s much progress still to be made, of course, but it’s fascinating to be in at the ground floor on a project deliberately designed to show something of tomorrow’s Vauxhalls, and to see at first hand how determined the company’s professional car creators are to succeed.

How the new concept should look, according to Autocar (and Adams):

I found all the Vauxhall-Opel background fascinating. I hadn’t realised contemporary German and British design styles had such synergies, or that Vauxhall had so many deeply impressive cars in its back catalogue.

But it was the final session on the high-level principles guiding the concept’s designers in Rüsselsheim that really got the creative juices going.

Saying that, there were surprisingly few rules. Design boss Mark Adams is keen to keep using the ‘signature lights’ of recent Vauxhall-Opel cars. The latest Astra and Insignia particularly show how narrow they can be yet how prominent, and how well they can incorporate unique daylight running identities. Adams also wants to maintain a precise bonnet centre line, a feature Vauxhalls have carried for 60 years that he believes implies manufacturing precision.

He showed me a simple frontal graphic template that makes a good guide: in effect, a pair of crossed lines that places the round badge at the centre, with the bonnet centre line as the upper vertical and the headlights at the lateral extremities. He said it would help, and it has.

Oh, and he’s seeking an all-new Vauxhall-Opel grille design on the basis that the outgoing shape isn’t so different from what other marques offer, and a new design would be an unmistakable signal that thIngs are changing quickly in the PSA-owned world of Vauxhall and Opel. “We need our own territory” was how Adams put it to me.