On the 1st of June, 1964, the first Viva rolled off the line at British Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port factory. Fifty years on, GM Europe's wilder bunch rocks harder than ever with an awesome ad celebrating their five millionth car.
I learned at a relatively young age that Vauxhalls are in fact the default choice of hooligans in Europe despite their small engines, when a friend of mine who likes four things, big old American cars, air-cooled ZAZes, Opel Mantas and rear-wheel drive Vauxhalls started doing burnouts with his Viva.
Little did we know that he disconnected the rear brakes before that, but that hardly mattered. It was highly entertaining to see him turn rather small tires into smoke at random points of the city. Vauxhalls also seem to make people misbehave at factories.
The latest incident happened after the five millionth Vauxhall left the lines at Ellesmere Port. A resident test driver got loose, and went pretty much Ken Block with a Viva, a Firenza, a fantastic Chevette HC and three generations of the Astra.
Cheers Vauxhall, and just keep educating Opel on how to have fun!