I’ve said it before, but the Curbside Cohort is the gift that just keeps giving. Following on from the 1960 Vauxhall Victor we saw in May this year comes a 1961 Envoy Sherwood station wagon, or as we Brits would call it, a 1960 Vauxhall Victor estate car, posted by William Oliver.
Vauxhall was GM’s UK outpost, and had been since 1926 when a luxury car maker was purchased and progressively turned into a mass market brand. Incidentally, GM only bought Vauxhall because Austin wouldn’t sell. Volume wise, it was always behind Ford and Austin, Morris, BMC or BLMC until the mid 1980s when BL went upmarket as Rover (or started to implode?).
The first Victor, from 1957, was Vauxhall’s family car, up against the Ford Consul, Austin Cambridge, Morris Oxford and above the Hillman Minx. 1.6 litres, four cylinders, three speed gearbox (optional four speed), rear leaf springs and a fairly spartan interior. No British wood’n’leather or sports car traits going on here.
The Victor’s main distinctive feature was its very North American styling, even more so than its competitors from Ford and Rootes. You can probably spot similarities and inspirations from several brands, not all of them GM.
This was partly because of the guidance of Vauxhall’s masters in Detroit, partly Vauxhall following a fashion for optimism (it may be me but few consumer goods look optimistic like a full size, full on Detroit styled 1950s car), and partly to be able to exploit the market for an import fighter in North America, as a captive import.
Under the Vauxhall name, the Victor was sold by Pontiac dealers but in Canada it was sold as the Envoy Standard and Special, and the Sherwood (as in Sherwood Forest) wagon.
The Envoy had the distinction of minor styling changes – notably a new grille, side mouldings and a revised rear light cluster with a blanking cap at the top. Somehow, given the corrosion issue the Victor had, these do not seem like a great idea.
But, then, long term, exporting Vauxhalls to North America was not a huge success either.
Who would have thought a seemingly innocuous name like Envoy would serve General Motors as both a Make from 1959-1970 and also a Model from 1998-2009? It also hosted one of GM’s most daring and strangest designs of the early 21st Century under the guise of the GMC Envoy XUV.
Coincidentally, funeral directors loved the Envoy XUV. It was used as a flower car and since the “conversion” was done at the factory, the funeral directors saved thousands by not having to order a “coach build .”
“Coincidentally, funeral directors loved the Envoy XUV. It was used as a flower car and since the “conversion” was done at the factory, the funeral directors saved thousands by not having to order a ‘coach build.’”
And as an added plus, flowers placed in the cargo area could be watered without even opening the sliding roof, due to the ineffectiveness of the seals. 😀
Lovely article with good information for the uninitiated. I did see Vauxhalls in the U.S. but this wagon is novel to me. I love the imitation American flare because it give the car, for me, a more likeable feeling, being a prepubescent and teen in the 1950’s. As for the Envoy “flower car.” it was made in 2004 and 2005. Prior to this vehicle we had the 1963 Studebaker Wagonaire which was produced through the 1966 model year. It came in different trim levels. The GMC Envoy was a downright tough truck with a four-speed automatic, good shifter handle, a hearty six-cylinder engine and a V8 option.
I’m curious… were there pricing or import duty advantages in Canada vs. the US because Canada was in the British Empire?
Yes, until the 1970s there were a number of UK-made cars and trucks sold in Canada, due to favorable trade agreements between the Commonwealth countries. Ford also sold a number of their European products there, ending with the mk3 Corrina, which was a poor seller; I’ve yet to see any evidence that any survived into the 1980s up there
Up to 1967 there were no import duties on cars from the UK coming into Canada. After that date they were taxed the same as other imports.
In 1962 your family went to local Chevy Dealer to test drive cars. 3 adults and 2 teens went out in a Vauxahall Wagon – very cramped. Tried a 1960 full size Chevy Sedan at same price and took it home.
We had a similar system in Australia back then. Our “American” car CKD kits came from Canada for this reason.
And “our” Ford Australia was entirely a Ford Canada subsidiary.
So was NZ but NZ got each succesive model where OZ got the 56 thru till 59.
The Victor and its derivatives were a demonstration that short-term thinking is a bad thing. It was rushed into production under pressure from Detroit. The body was developed from a production point of view by Fisher, who had little experience of unibody construction. It was designed without regard for rust traps, and assembled without much regard for longevity. It sold well internationally for a brief period – then when its flimsiness and tinniness became obvious to all, it didn’t. Victors were our family transport in the late 1950s, and I remember the ‘thin’ feeling of the panelwork. The day after my father got the first one, the accelerator pedal broke (the rod snapped), and the lighting knob came off. The original F styling was a bit idiosyncratic for European tastes, but the revisions, including the Envoy etc., just made it worse. (The PA cars were more satisfactory.) GM management was very cynical in those days.
The best thing that came out of the F series was the FB; a much better car all round.
A question: did Opels of the late 1950s and early 1960s rust as badly as Vauxhalls? If not why not, because they ranges were largely parallel and developed under similar GM overseas regimes.
If so, it was not a big issue. My father had (in Brazil) a 1958 Opel Rekord P1 until 1970, which he swapped for something more modern, a 1970 Chevrolet Opala, the Brazilian Rekord C derivate. The Opala was hopelessly rusted through by 1974, the Opel had very little rust after 12 years.
I’ve been import spotting in the US for decades, but I’ve only seen one Vauxhall, a grey Victor sticking out from the overgrowth behind a barn on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, 40 years ago.
This thing, with it’s special trim & badging, and apparently still up, mostly intact, and maybe running, must be the rarest of the rare!
Happy Motoring, Mark
The styling of these is mesmerizing to me. It is one of those designs you can squint at and see almost anything. The greenhouse is a 58 Chevy, the grille is a 56, the general shape is a Checker and the back of the wagon and the taillights say 57 Studebaker.
The extremely unconvincing low budget face lift tail lights do remind me of everything Studebaker was doing every year to their sad old outdated 1953 car bodies from the later fifties on.
I’d compare the greenhouse more to the ’55-57 Chevys, with a windshield halfway between those and the ’58. The ’58 station wagon had a wraparound rear window/tailgate. The earlier one (and later ’59) had the wrapping side windows and narrower rear window like the Vauxhall. The slanted C pillar does recall the ’58 though.
I have always seen just as much US Ford in English and German Fords from the period. For both GM and Ford they were still bothering to make different versions of mini-me American cars in Europe vs the UK. (I just checked Opel wagon images from then).
I lived outside an Army base in Arizona as a kid in the ’60’s so I saw a lot more various European cars around than no doubt typical for the US.
JPC, my view of these has similarities to your own, with the variation that I think the stylists were themselves squinting, probably after a big night out where they had looked at almost anything – and then, without any thought of fitness, included it.
Vauxhalls sold in Canada thru Pontiac dealers thru 1972 [changed to Firenza name in 1971] while the nearly identical Envoys sold thru Chevy-Olds dealers. thru 1970.
Yes. I think Vauxhalls arrived first, sold though Pontiac dealers. A few years later ‘Envoy’ badged cars appeared at Chevrolet dealers.
I don’t remember seeing any pre-1957 Vauxhalls in Canada – they probably arrived that year with the introduction of the new Victor, followed by the Envoy version of the Victor a few years later. GM never brought in the larger 6 cylinder Vauxhall Velox.
My memory is that there were many more Vauxhall Victors sold than Envoys, but then our small town had only a Pontiac dealer – the nearest Chevrolet dealer was 12 miles away. Looking at the brochure, it appears that the Envoy was a slightly cheaper version of the Victor (those tail lights…), possibly not a winning marketing proposition.
Vauxhalls were first sold in Canada in 1948. The larger Velox/Cresta PA series was also available through 1962.
My bad – don’t remember seeing any of them. Victors were relatively common.
Victors of this generation certainly seem to be the most common survivor. The Velox/Cresta PA rusted badly even for a Vauxhall so are quite rare. A friend of mine used to have a couple.
Wow, lookit there…it’s got its original Lucas headlamps—standard 7″ round size, but they aren’t sealed beams; they’ve got replaceable (non-halogen) bulbs. These are from the brief era when a portion of the British headlamp industry felt they had better ideas than either the Americans or the Europeans. In fact these headlamps offered only the worst aspects of both, along with some additional drawbacks. Lucas hedged their bets in every direction; they made sealed beams, European-type lamps, and these godawful British-type lamps.
By the late 60s you could buy halogen bulbs with ‘British pre-focus’ base, I used them in the P700 lamps I put in my Herald. In the 70s I had a car with sealed beams, so I replaced them with Cibies – I never liked ‘sealed beams’.
This fancied up version follows the Ford pattern of Meteorizing for Canada. Just pile on some weird unrelated chrome.
The GM method of hybridizing would have added a mock Cresta grille, and maybe fake Cresta fins, to the Victor.
I’d be curious to know how many wagons were sold in Canada. I certainly don’t remember seeing any out west. The sedans were certainly plentiful in the early sixties.
I rather like the look of the wagon, but not a practical car especially when you could buy a bigger domestic wagon for a little more coin.
Canada, eh? Taillights out of the way when being pushed in Winter, eh? Great Idea, eh?
One of my older brother’s friends owned a blue Vauxhall Envoy sedan, at the time of my brother’s wedding in 1972. This gentleman was also a member of a local Ottawa band named Octavian that achieved some commercial success in Canada, a few years later. With a couple popular Top 40 radio friendly hits in the mid 70s. Catchy song.
Sounds good, though perhaps a bit too much like another band with some Canadian roots failed to chart in the US with this similarly-titled, similarly-themed song a year earlier:
I still wouldn’t have minded more Canadian efforts (both musical and automotive) crossing into the lower border.
Poco was one of the best country rock groups of the 70s. And one of my personal favourites with Firefall.
Many Canadians would probably cite April Wine as the leading Canadian band that should have been big in the US. There have been many excellent artists that simply were not well promoted in America.
I grew up in the ’80s within 100 miles of the Canadian border. Just like the occasional maple leaf penny in your pocket change, I have distinct memories of random Canadian things coloring (colouring?) my memories of that time. Like my friend’s mother who had two late ’60s Ford Cortinas depositing rust in her back field for some reason. Or my beloved Pop Shoppe pop that I spent a lot of allowance money on in the summertime. Or the Pontiac Tempest I would see around town that was really a Chevrolet Corsica. Or my brother’s love for ‘The Nature of the Beast’, listening to channel 2 of the 8-track over and over just to hear “Sign of the Gypsy Queen” again and again.
Fascinating on those taillights, which kind of resemble 58 Buick units. But if you capped off the lowest portion, changed the middle strip to clear, and replaced the top cap with a red lens, you’d have a 55 Chevy taillight assembly!
The capping off also reminds me of AMC’s awkward conversion of the Ambassador’s taillights from vertical to horizontal in 1969: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-cohort/cohort-outtake-1969-amc-ambassador-sst/
It’s a stunning find by William Oliver. These things were made entirely from crushed and re-melted rust particles from new, and, 37 days after delivery, became brown lace doilies even in sunny Oz.
Even though this wagon looks a very great deal nicer than the sedan, this car is arguably THE exemplar for the rule that big car styling does not shrink without the very finest of skills applied. In the metal, they look quite ridiculous, narrow-gauge-railway tracked, foolishly proportioned, and yet despite the misplaced flamboyant bits, somehow uptight-mean (as in, for a penny-pincher). At least the ill-fitting posho name used in Canada is entirely in keeping with this gormless conceit, let down only by the failure to include a weeny chrome Robin as the envoy on the hood.
Really interesting factoid there, Brother Carr, about Vauxhall being a fourth-rung player until the ’80’s. I’d always assumed their sales had been neck-and-neck with Ford or BL before then.
The Victor was only 1500cc against 1700 of the Ford Consul, neither car was a powerhouse, it wasnt untill the UK got motorways that the Victor got 1600cc engines but they got faster as you went along and rust reduced the weight shocking cars for evaporating its amazing to see any survivors here never mind in a harsh climate good find.
My Mom had an Envoy Epic in 1970 tiny thing really…I still don’t know much about them
I have the exact same model in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Hey thanks for the post! It’s actually my car.
Where is your Envoy?
Toronto Canada. Planning on having it on the road soon. Motor is stuck from sitting so gotta do a motor swap.
Mine is the exact same color and everything but I’m swapping the whole frame and drive train. Sitting the car on an S10 fame and drive train
I would be interested in seeing that process. I’m going to be putting a Buick V6 and trans in mine with a rack steering. Might do a little gasser style. I don’t have any of the badging which is a pain. Found a sedan in a local wrecking yard with the full style tail lights and another front marker lens which I need.
Well, I also plan on doing some mods on the body as well so I will not need the taillights when this happens but I have to wait for the body guy to decide to get started because do not have to equipment to do this frame swap. When this happens if you would like to have the taillights I would be happy to simply give them to you. I’ll send you pictures of my car as it sits now and when it gets started the in-between pictures as well. my email is quasixx at gmail dot com
Hi Robert, I’m trying to find a pair of the ‘ENVOY’ badges / scripts that are on the front wing (fender) of the Envoy. Any ideas where I could find a couple?