© Cavalier and Chevette Club 2015
With acknowledgement to Vauxhall Motors Limited
Chevette HS & HSR Group 4 Rally Car
Chevette HS
In 1976, at the instigation of new chairman Bob Price, Vauxhall decided to increase their profile in international rallying. In conjunction with Blydenstein Racing, who ran
Dealer Team Vauxhall, the nearest thing to a 'works' competition effort, they developed a rally version of the Chevette.
The resulting car was extremely fast, with 135 hp (100 kW), and a far cry from the small-engined Chevettes from which it was developed. In order to compete in
international rallying, the car had to be homologated; for Group 4, the class the HS was to compete in, this meant building 400 production examples. The result was an
incredibly fast and well handling, if rather unrefined, road car. Like the Droopsnoot Firenza, the HS was available only in silver, with red highlighting and a bright red,
black and tartan interior; though (partly to help sell unsold vehicles) some cars were repainted black, such the Mamos Garage HS-X.
The HS was a great success as a rally car, clocking up notable wins for drivers such as Tony Pond and Russell Brooks. It advanced the state of the art in world-class rallying
quite significantly, and was a challenge to the most successful rally car of all time, the Ford Escort, which had dominated the sport. However, its reign was not to last, as
the Audi Quattro soon appeared, raising the stakes once again by introducing four-wheel drive.
Chevette HSR.
To stay competitive, an evolution version, the Chevette HSR, was developed, which held its own for several more years into the early 1980s. Evolution demanded a
production run of 10% of the original build incorporating the new modifications; these were made by rebuilding unsold HSs and by modifying customers' vehicles.
However, the merger of the Vauxhall and Opel marketing departments had already resulted in Dealer Team Vauxhall and Dealer Opel Team (DOT) joining to form GM
Dealer Sport (GMDS); with the Chevette soon to be obsolete, Opel were able to force the cancellation of the HSR rally programme in favour of the Manta 400.
Early Chevette HS outside Griffin House, Luton.
Chevette HS Brochure.
Chevette HS.
Chevette HSR.