Vauxhall Firenza
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The Firenza was a model of car produced by Vauxhall Motors between 1970 and 1976. It was a development of the Viva, but had a distinctive coupé body style (fastback) and only two doors.
The initial Firenza was available in 1159cc overhead valve and 1598cc overhead camshaft variants, later enlarged to 1256cc and 1798cc respectively. All models had a front mounted four cylinder engine driving the rear wheels. Suspension was double wishbone and coilsprings at the front, and a live rear axle with trailing arms and coils at the rear.
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Droopsnoot Firenza
The car was a design triumph for Vauxhall, but a marketing failure. The car was launched to much publicity in a special one-off race at Thruxton circuit in Hampshire, with top drivers of the day taking part including Gerry Marshall and Barry "Whizzo" Williams, who won the race. However, the fuel crisis of the time meant that suddenly it became very hard to sell gas guzzling cars like this (even though the aerodynamics benefited fuel economy greatly, reducing the power needed to attain its top speed by some 30 hp), and coupled with some production line difficulties in actually building the car meant that sales and delivery were slow, and eventually just 204 examples were built, far short of the 30,000 projected. This very low volume was obviously a disaster for Vauxhall, but ironically it has led to the car becoming a very collectable classic, thus ensuring its survival—some of the much more common production cars produced alongside it can be now harder to find. A celebrity owner of a droopsnoot Firenza was footballer Luther Blissett.
The Firenza was also very successful in saloon car racing in the 1970s, especially in its Old Nail and Baby Bertha versions, piloted to great effect by Gerry Marshall.
Despite the low production run, the aerodynamic qualities and styling of the "droopsnoot" were incorporated, with improved productionisation, into most of Vauxhall's remaining 1970s new models: the Chevette, Cavalier and Carlton. The Firenza can be seen as a styling prototype for these models. Its influence can be judged from the fact that Ford adopted a very similar look for its Mk II RS2000 Escort and the 1982 Ford Sierra, which in turn were widely copied throughout the 1980s by others. For this reason, the HPF looks far less dated than many of its contemporaries.
Performance:
- Top Speed: 120 mph
- 0-60mph: 8 seconds
- Economy: 25 miles per gallon
Comparable Contemporaries
- Ford Capri
- Ford Escort RS2000
- Triumph Dolomite Sprint
- Rover SD1
- Hillman Avenger Tiger
External Links
- Droop Snoot Group website (http://www.droopsnootgroup.org.uk)
- Vauxhall Heritage (http://www.vauxhallheritage.com/index.asp)