Vauxhall Chevette
"It's whatever you want it to be." Britain's first home-grown hatchback of its kind.

The story
Vauxhall took General Motors' world small-car design and gave it a sloping droop-snoot nose and a hatchback. It arrived just as buyers wanted small, thrifty cars and was a best-seller for years.
Inside
Simple and light, with tartan cloth on smarter models and a folding rear seat.
In period colours
Tap a colour to respray the drawing.
The wild 2.3-litre Chevette HS rally car won the British Rally Championship in 1979.
Meanwhile, in 1975
British Leyland was nationalised to save it from collapse, and Bohemian Rhapsody was number one.
Best-selling single of 1975: Bye Bye Baby by Bay City Rollers
Before you buy a 1970s car
- Rust is common in sills, wheel arches, front panels and the bottom of the doors.
- Check the wiring and electrics carefully, as they age badly.
- Many volume-selling cars still have good parts support, but badge-engineered and low-volume models can be harder to source.
General notes, not specific to this model. Check the model's own history before buying.
Rivals of its day
Picked automatically: cars on sale at the same time with similar size, speed and price.
See the real thing
These open in a new tab: the car on Wikimedia Commons, the interior and the badge as Google image searches.
Today's money: the launch price adjusted for inflation to 2026, using the Office for National Statistics price index.