Vauxhall cars are a large British car manufacturer owned by general motors’ the American conglomerate.

Vauxhall Car Company was started in Vauxhall, London in 1857 by Alexander Wilson although originally started as a manufacturer of pumps in 1903 Vauxhall diversified into car manufacturing.

In 1905 Vauxhall moved production to Luton, during the First World War Vauxhall built large numbers of staff cars for the British armed forces.

After many years of struggling to make a profit Vauxhall was purchased by general motors’ in 1925 for two and a half million dollars, in the 1930s GM setup a subsidiary company for Vauxhall called Bedford to market vans and Lorries.

During the second world war the Luton car production factory suspended all car building to instead use the factory to build Churchill tanks, over five thousand six hundred tanks and two hundred and fifty thousand Bedford lorries were built at the Luton factory during the second world war for the war effort.

After the war car building started again in Luton, for the next thirty years Vauxhall was stuck behind ford and British Leyland, by 1989 Vauxhall was on equal terms with rover in second place behind ford.

By the turn of the millennium Vauxhall was competing with Ford in terms of UK car sales, many of Vauxhalls car designs are shared with general motors’ continental subsidiary Opel cars.

In 2009 General motors’ filed for bankruptcy protection and arranged to sell Vauxhall and Opel to the Canadian company magna international, after restructuring GM called off the sale in November 2009.