This is a circa-1965 Envoy Special. That is: a 1963-’67 Vauxhall Victor FC as sold by Canadian Chev-Olds dealerships (speaking of British cars sold in Canada). The FC was the first Vauxhall to bear curved side glass, which was still a pretty new thing at that time. Dig that sideview mirror up on the A-pillar!
But this, strictly speaking, isn’t a Vauxhall; that name doesn’t appear anywhere on the car. It’s an Envoy, the spelling of which must’ve caused, in certain parts of the country, no small amount of grincement des dents, which is how the French say “tooth-gnashing”. As far as I can discover, this model was not sold in Quebec as the Envoyé(e).
They really meant it; it’s an Envoy. Says so right there, front and centre.
Aside from the nameplates, most of the trim was the same as the home-market Vauxhall car. The taillights were unique to the Canadian car both in design and in colour (all red; no amber turn signal)…
…which is a little weird, because the UK lights were certified to the SAE standards—the closest North American thing then to lighting regulations. These markings on a corner of the UK lamp mean “This lamp is designed to conform to the SAE standards current in 1964 for stop, tail, and turn signal lights; reflex reflectors, and reversing lights”. Maybe one or another province (or, more likely, GM of Canada) required all rear lights to be red. The all-amber front turn signal lenses are Canada-specific, too.
And speaking of lights (how does that keep happening?), this car when I saw it still had its original Lucas headlamps. Pre-halogen sealed beams like this can last for remarkably many years, gradually growing dimmer and dimmer and dimmer.
Best I could do for an interior shot. What we can see looks pretty fair, eh!
I say Ehn-voy, but the only person I know who has one of the later GMC SUV’s calls it his an On-voy. In neither case, On-vwah. I’d heard of these , probably have never seen one; for some reason I thought they were sold by Pontiac dealers. Or was that the Vauxhalls here in the US? I have vague memories that my mother considered a Victor to replace our Hillman, before picking a Volvo. But I thought it was sold by a local “import” dealer, alongside Citroen’s and Peugeot’s, and not a GM store.
My mother grew up on the East Coast and says “EN-veh-lope”, “AV-in-Yoo”, “FAR-est”, “FAR-head”, “FAR-eign” and “AR-enge juice” (her father said “AR-en-juice”). My father was from the West Coast and said “AHN-veh-lope”, “AV-uh-noo”, “FORE-est”, “FORE-head”, “FORE-eign”, and “OR-enge juice”.
GM wanted everyone to say “EEK-win-ox”, which…sure, okeh, it brings its own “eek”!
Well, I’m a West Coast native and I pronounce some of those words like your Dad and some like your Mom. I also call the fruit that’s a bit like a small peach, and used to grow all over the Valley of Heart’s Delight (which is how they once said Silicon Valley here) an APE-ricot.
I grew up saying “APE-ricot”; those kids in the Fruit Roll-Ups ads talking about “APP-ricot” sounded funny to me. Now I say “APE-ree-cot” because that’s how my dad’s father said it, and his memory brings a smile.
Long ago, in another life on another planet, I was a linguistics student. Stuff like this makes my socks roll up and down.
Ah, linguistics! Accents are funny things.
When I was a child I soon noticed some people spoke differently – On-veh-lope vs. En-ve-lope, Vaws vs. Vahz (Vase), which Americans pronounce differently again. They probably would have said On-voy too, if they ever had cause to use the word. Notably my grandmother and my favourite aunt; my grandfather hardly spoke, and there always seemed to be a pipe in the way when he did.
At first I put it down to Mum’s parents and grandparents being German, but later I realized that it wasn’t that. There were remnants of an upper-class private-school accent and an ordinary-folk accent, and that my mum’s people had picked up the upper-class version, the one folk on TV and radio spoke – and yet my grandparents predated both TV and radio. Must have been picked up from whoever it was who taught them English, because when Germans speak English it sounds different again. No doubt there are a variety of German accents too, but my ears aren’t attuned to notice that. But I digress…
Strangely, only one of my mother’s siblings retained that accent, to the end of her days, despite working in a bakery where she was interacting with customers all the time. The two who married used the ordinary-folk version, despite both working as well.
Fast forward to today, and the Australian accent has become less pronounced (sorry!), less obvious – probably due to the influence of all the American movies and TV shows. But then, Americans (movies, TV; can’t think when I last met one ‘live’) don’t sound like they did fifty years ago either. We seem to be moving toward a Global English accent. Or are we? There are such a variety of accents coming out of England nowadays…… 🙂
In North America vase can rhyme with “face” or can be “vahz”. Basil can be “BAYzle” or “BAZzle”. Shallot can be “SHALL-ut” or “shuh-LOT”. And on and on.
Me, I think the homogenising effect of American cultural output (TV, movies, etc) is regrettable.
Daniel Stern: You kept me up past my usual bedtime with that video, but it was time well-spent. Thanks a bunch!
BTW, my first impression of your Photo #1 was a 1960s Kodachrome catalog shot–you fooled me for a short while!
Now you mention it, I see what you mean—it looks like it came out of one of the many how-to booklets Kodak put out in the ’50s-’70s. Ah, Kodachrome. Lovely images, but hideously toxic chemistry.
My dad briefly had a red 59 Vauxhall Victor when I first had my drivers. It was a nice solid little second car. Having 3 cars necessitated selling either this one or the 67 Meteor. The Vauxhall sold first so that was the end of that but it left a favourable impression on us. A couple years later he bought an Envoy as pictured. It was not at all solid, reliable nor comfortable. My brother took it up town and while it was just sitting there by itself a drunk driver came and smashed it. There was much rejoicing on my father’s part. All our parts actually.
Neat! It looks like the front half of a 64 Studebaker and the back part of a fintail Mercedes.
A ’64 Studebaker is exactly what I thought of upon seeing the STDBR 64 markings in the photo of the UK-market amber lights
That is a smart looking little car. One more for the fantasy garage.
The front end looks like a 1972-76 Ford Courier.
The Envoy front grille was used on the higher performance VX4/90 model in the home market, inconjuction with a constrasting side flash and different wheel trims. Twin carbs. raised the power from 70 in the standard Victor to 85.5 hp (gross), but it was hardly a match for a Cortina GT, weighing almost 400lbs more. The near fuselage style curved sides gave good shoulder room inside though.
That weight disparity got me checking, The Vauxhall was 6″ longer and 2″ wider – somehow they always seemed larger than that. Still, that’s not a lot to account for 400 lbs extra – just goes to show how lightly built those Cortinas were.
The Cortina’s lightness, and therefore performance and economy, were one of the main reasons behind it’s success. The Victor was particularly heavy compared to its other contemporaries though. The slightly smaller Hillman Super Minx weighed about the same while the slightly older BMC Farinas were another 200lbs heavier.
I guess Vauxhall were compensating for the rust problems of earlier models by overbuilding these, making sure they were strong and likely to stay that way. The FB was almost 2cwt lighter despite being much the same size.
The doors and door frames are from the larger Cresta cars and the six cylinder engine will go in these Victors were quite a big car to have a 1600cc four.
I love it ! My Mum had a 1965 Envoy Sherwood wagon for a few years and my Uncle had an Envoy Epic around the same time. As recent British immigrants, we called them EN-voy, non of this pretentious Awn-voy nonsense, thank you very much!
What a great find! Not many of these left in such good shape.
I briefly owned an earlier one – a 1965 Envoy Epic.
I wonder if GM’s branding choice was the best one. Envoy was a name without a history, breeding a little confusion and suspicion, whereas Vauxhall at least had a history and probably some brand loyalty. And of course everyone knew it was a Vauxhall anyway.
Presumably GM felt that its chances of success would be better if marketed as a standalone GM brand, with fewer ties to the somewhat stained reputation of British cars. But the impression at the time, even to a kid, was that maybe it was actually a de-contented Vauxhall, keeping its slightly suspect reputation but without a higher-quality British interior. The worst of both worlds, and leading to a certain suspicion of GM’s integrity.
Both Vauxhall and Envoy models were sold in Canada, but Vauxhalls through Pontiac & Buick dealers and Envoys through Chevrolet & Oldsmobile dealers.
The question is whether it was worth the money shaved off the list price via Commonwealth tariff preference to SAE-certify and bring Vauxhall models into Canada rather than the same Opel models sold in the US (apart from 1958-60 when both were available North America-wide).
For that matter, after 1962 GM clearly didn’t think there was a need in the US for them to offer a car this size since the Opel Rekord was withdrawn in favor of the Kadett, leaving the Corvair as the next size up from the smallest Opel.
Not a whole lot of certification costs required. Federal standards didn’t exist in Canada (or the US) at that time, and the only provincial/state standards that went into enough detail to require changes from the home-market spec would’ve been the headlamps (easy-peasy; Lucas had just as wide a range of RH-traffic sealed beams as LH-traffic ones) and front and rear signal lights.
And of course moving the driving controls to the left, but Canada wasn’t the only LHD market for Vauxhall at the time.
Pretty rare in the UK, like hen’s teeth are rare.
My Uncle who worked for Vauxhall-Bedford drove a white with red interior Victor 101, IIRC 1965 model, with a column change and bench seat.
The Victor was outgunned by the cheaper but barely smaller Cortina, which also had a wide ranges of trims and specs, and options, and this model marked the beginning of the Victor getting bigger to try to to find a niche or fading away depending on your view of history.
When I saw the British Columbia license plate that the first clue why the On-Voy looked so good. I assume this car resides on the lower mainland.
British imports flooded the Canadian market after WW II and while they filled a gap for folks in the lower income bracket for a few years, North American manufacturers soon had smaller models that were more durable, reliable and at a reasonable price. So its no wonder British cars faded into the background by the mid-sixties.
Then Japanese cars started taking a share of the market and it was game over for the Brits save a few sports car models and a couple of luxury makes.
I remember seeing a few of these early Envoys as a kid. I wonder who the buyers were?
Yep, I photographed it in Vancouver.
A few decades ago at the public library I was reading the Yellow Pages for a major Canadian city, and I was going through the listings for new-car dealers. The Envoy was billed as “the tough little car from General Motors.”
This series of Envoy made its debut for 1964 and lasted till 1968 when it was replaced by the larger FD Victor based models.
Of course the first thing I zeroed in on was the likely original Lucas headlamp on this car in the second photo, answering my question of whether GM used Guide or Lucas lamps in England.
I thought non-halogen sealed beams maintained most of their intensity until they burned out, save for losing a bit to the darkened section at the top of the reflector and lens where boiled off tungsten accumulates? …and if the filament sags or shifts enough over time to throw the focus off? I’m deferring to you on this, Mr Stern, because “I know > I thought”.
What year were amber rear turn signal finally permissible in all states and provinces? I would guess 1968, but it seems like all the foreign cars I remember in the US had red in the rear until around 1973. I do recall seeing amber rears on buses, trucks, and pickups with “Class A” turn signals a bit earlier.
Reflector and lens blackening degrades output quite a lot more than it seems like it would. Also the filament ages such that it produces less light—plus, yeah, sag/shift.
FMVSS 108 took hold for 1968 and said rear turns could be red or amber, thus overriding any state codes (I don’t know of any offhand, but there might’ve been) that prescribed red for all rear lamps.
Volvo, Mercedes, and BMW largely changed from red in ’67 to amber in ’68 in the US market. There were probably others.
A nice little car in wonderful shape .
The Northern middle of America used to be chock full of Canadian variants and imports .
U.S. spec, passenger cars went from white front turn signal lenses to amber in the 1963 model year . (or was ’64 ?) .
Please keep finding and sharing cool little oddities like this .
-Nate
Front turn signals went from white to amber for 1963, by general agreement of industry and state/provincial motor vehicle administrators (there being no federal standards in either the US or Canada at that time). Either an amber lens with a clear bulb or a clear lens with an amber bulb was permitted, right from the start—viz the 1963 Plymouth, and others.
The most retrograde aspect of the subject car’s bodywork must be the door window frames (is there a better or more precise term ?). Their breadth I associate with pre-1950 autos—and the curved glass in them makes for a truly anachronistic effect ! On top of that is the fact of the plan shape, wherein the body seems not to taper at all in width at the ends; the bottom edges of the door windows describe a perfectly straight line, and the car seem if anything to grow in width behind the doors. Of course a narrower-than-necessary rear track could contribute to the effect . . .
My father was born and raised in northern New Jersey and, like his father, worked in Manhattan. He was offended by the pronunciation his offspring gave to the words orange and forehead, which he declared should be “AHR-unge” and “FAR-head.” Adver-TISE-ment was another bugaboo; it should be Ad-VERT-isement, he instructed us.
A great find! These were not common in Ontario when they were new, either as Envoys or Vauxhalls. The smaller Viva/Epic was much more common.