From The Classifieds: 1957 Vauxhall Victor
Vauxhall's 1950s Victor sedan was a scaled-down British imitation of the iconic 1957 ChevroletFrom The Classifieds: 1957 Vauxhall Victor
If you ever wondered what a scaled-down, British version of the iconic 1957 Chevrolet would look like, Vauxhall provided the answer, in the same year, with its blatantly Chev-inspired Victor sedan.
As little brother to the six-cylinder Vauxhall Cresta that won the inaugural Armstrong 500 production car race at Philip Island in 1960, the 1.5-litre four-cylinder F series Victor sedan built between 1957 and 1961 was an outrageous – and, to some, overly influenced by GM’s head offices in Detroit – style statement in its time.
With a “panoramic” wrap-around windscreen emulating contemporary US fashion, horizontal jutting tail fins, hooded headlights and stylised front and rear bumpers featuring outer “ports” (the rear right side containing the exhaust outlet), the Victor stood out from its more conservative British contemporaries.
The 1.5-litre pushrod engine produced 41kW and drove the rear wheels through a column-shift, all-synchro, three-speed manual gearbox. An independent, coil-spring front suspension was backed up by a leaf-spring, live-rear-axle arrangement and brakes were hydraulic drums on all four corners. The steering was by manual recirculating ball.
With bench seats front and rear, and an equally adventurous instrument panel design featuring an ovoid instrument display and sculpted shapes that emulated the exterior styling, the Victor was pretty spacious, light and airy inside.
Where it didn’t emulate US cars was in its performance: The Victor drove well, but acceleration times were far from spectacular. A speed of 100km/h from a standstill took the best part of 30 seconds and maximum speed topped out at around 120km/h.
Vauxhall produced around 390,000 Victors during the car’s four-year lifecycle, after which it would be replaced by a more decently-British design.
The 1957 example on sale through carsales.com.au attracted our attention because of its originality.
It’s a classic case of a car that has been kept within the family for most of its life. With only one owner prior to being acquired by the current owner’s grandmother, the beige/cream Victor is claimed to have been kept out of the weather all its life and has been stored since 2004 after plans of joining a car club were shelved.
The owner says the Victor is accident-free and that there is “almost no work to be done.”
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