Meet Vauxhall’s space-age aero concept

Incredible 1970s SRV still looks futuristic today

Thought Vauxhall was all hatchbacks and staid saloons? History begs to differ.

Sure, it’s best known for Cavaliers and Corsas, but the British marque is no stranger to Space Age machines: in 1970, it launched a concept so streamlined and startling that it still looks like the future today.

Its name? SRV – and it was nothing if not arresting. Designed as a cutting-edge wedge, it was replete with clever engineering, aero trickery and dramatic styling flourishes.

Never heard of it? Worry not: we spoke to its creators to get the full story behind this most modern of 51-year-old concepts.

All aboard the aerofoil

It’s hard not to drift into fantasy when you clamber aboard this dramatic, aerofoil-shaped concept car – until, of course, you turn the key: not much functional engineering went into this vision of the future, which is why it’s resolutely silent.

Yet it still feels remarkably complete. And exotic, which is why it comes as quite a shock to find Vauxhall’s unmistakable Griffin crest plastered on the car’s flanks.

Cherry on the concept

Yes, this low-slung thing is from Luton – but there’s an even greater surprise to come. It might look like a pseudo-supercar and have a mid-engine setup like the best sports coupés, but the SRV is, in fact, a four-door, four-seater saloon.

“I wanted to test some packaging theories,” former Vauxhall design supremo Wayne Cherry explains. “One of the most important things with a concept car is that there is a surprise. The idea was that you wouldn’t see the rear hatches – I never called them doors – until they were opened, then you realised it was a four-seater. It was a real ‘wow’ moment.”

The man behind the design

Cherry joined GM in 1962 and moved to Luton in ’65. He’s charged by some Vauxhall diehards with contributing to the marque’s downfall, having been design boss of GM Europe during the merger of the Opel and Vauxhall ranges.

But John Stephenson, a young studio engineer at the time, remembers differently: “While Wayne was there it was a golden era for Vauxhall styling. There were no real limits in terms of practicality or price. Wayne sustained a really great team who were all trying to keep the Vauxhall side up.”

Crafted across the hall

And the SRV was the manifestation of this passion. When Cherry had completed sketch designs and full-sized tape drawings, stylists John Taylor and Chris Field were tasked with turning the idea into a reality, along with a skilled group of fabricators.

“From conceptual sketches, the design came together very quickly,” recalls Cherry. “There were four studios on one side of the hall, then a metal shop, wood shop, glassfibre, paint and trim shop on the other. The design went in one and and the car came out the other.”

Engineered potential

Under that well-finished glassfibre skin, plenty of thought went into creating a car that would really work. Well, sort of: the turbocharged engine was actually made from glassfibre, wood and aluminium dummy parts.

But there was a proper monocoque rolling chassis, with tubular subframes and an ‘electric levelling system’ that, in a real machine, would adjust adjust aero balance at speed by changing the ride height and pumping fuel into forward bag tanks.

Genius in the hinges

Stephenson was involved in some clever engineering to make the car work as its creators wanted.

Take those ‘rear hatches’: “There was no way you could support those huge doors with an ordinary hinge. So we used Morris Minor track-rod ends and had hinges machined from solid steel billet – they haven’t dropped in 40 years. I was also proud of the ‘hidden’ rear-hinged doors, because they eventually arrived in production on the Mazda RX-8.”

You can't beat a good binnacle

As for the ‘test’ aspects of the car? Pure theatre: an instrument binnacle that hinged out with the door; a manometer that used aerospace Pitot tubes to measure pressure over the nose and adjust the front aerofoil; gauges in the engine bay that monitors everything from boost pressure to exhaust gas temperature.

The clock even had a data logger and could measure tenths of a second. Because aeronautical equals cool.

From runway to race track

“Between race cars and aircraft you have the entire inspiration for the vehicle,” says Cherry. 

“Le Mans cars inspired John Taylor’s monocoque and the long tail; interest in aerodynamics inspired the adjustable front wing and rear suspension. The thing I always thought was cool was the instrument panel – with the instruments out of the way, the view ahead was like in a race car, with room around the wheel for your legs.”

Low, wide and ever so long

It would be wrong to dismiss the design as mere folly, though. It’s very hard to build a practical mid-engined four-seater – ask anyone who owns a Ferrari Mondial – but Cherry’s team managed it: “In race cars of the time drivers were moving forwards so we did the same, which allowed us to package a second row of seats and a motor, with a spare wheel in the tail.”

At 105cm high, the SRV is a thumb taller than a Ford GT40 yet remarkably spacious. Then again, at almost 2m wide and more than 5m long, it would have been a pretty unwieldy beast to manage about town.

Cutting-edge wedge

Many have accused the Vauxhall’s ground-hugging wedge of impersonating its contemporaries, but they’ve got their dates wrong: visitors to the Earls Court Motor show in October 1970 got a first glimpse of the SRV some two weeks before the doors to the Turin Show opened to reveal the similarly striking Bertone Zero and Giugiaro’s Tapiro. 

Sure, they might not have invented the wonder-wedge, but Cherry and his team were firmly at the cutting edge.

Radical relevance

Perhaps fairer was Autocar’s scepticism over its relevance at the time. Cherry is the first to admit that the SRV didn’t directly influence a particular road car – GM was quick to point out that production wasn’t a possibility – but he still vigorously defends the project.

“Within an energetic organisation one idea inspires the next, so you can’t underestimate the importance of advance design. It changes everybody’s perspective and perception. A lot of concepts are basically pre-production cars, while others are a radical statement of what you are capable of – the SRV was one of those.”

Model of future past

Proof of the car’s importance to its maker lies in its longevity. While most cardboard concepts are consigned to history within months, the SRV was still being shown as ‘a glimpse into the future’ at the Scottish Motor Show in 1977. Even a year after that it was tagged ‘a look ahead to the possible Vauxhalls of tomorrow’. 

“I don’t know what it cost, but we got good value out of it,” laughs Cherry. “It was probably the most thoroughly developed non-running concept car ever made.”

Top of the concepts

Cherry retired from GM in 2004, but remains enthusiastic about his 40-year-old creation: “It’s got to be one of the highlights of my career. There have been thousands of concepts over the years, but when people sit down and name the top 10 or 20 they usually identify the SRV.”

“Years later, when I travelled around design schools I’d see photos of it pinned above the desks. A lot of designers thought it was a real benchmark – and that’s about as high praise as you can get.”