Concept Cars You Forgot About: Vauxhall VX Lightning

Walking into a Vauxhall dealership in 2003 wasn’t exactly an exciting affair. I should know; I had the misfortune of being taken to one at the age of seven so my dad could buy a Vectra GSi.

It’d be a sea of Corsas, the ageing Astra, the Frontera and the Zafira before they all started self-combusting. If you were very lucky, you might’ve been able to see a VX220, but I can’t say Hull’s premier Vauxhall dealership had such a thing on that occasion.

How much more interesting could those visits have been had the Vauxhall VX Lightning made production, though?

Unveiled as a celebration of its 100th birthday, the VX Lightning imagined a world where Vauxhall was building a traditional front-engined, rear-drive drop-top sports car.  

You, an American, may be looking at this car and thinking, “Hang on, that’s proportioned an awful lot like a Pontiac Solstice”. Well… you’d be on to something with that. It used the same platform that the Solstice Concept previewed just a year earlier.

More than that, it was effectively a carbon copy underneath. It used the same GM 2.2-litre Ecotec four-cylinder engine, supercharged to produce around 240bhp. That was paired up to a six-speed manual gearbox. It also meant independent suspension all around and a supposed 50:50 weight distribution.

What it did get, though, was a new look designed by GM’s UK design studio based in the Midlands. Details included rollover hoops, a forward-opening bonnet and angles quite literally everywhere. Oh, and that incredibly ‘00s concept car interior.

It was supposed to be a showcase of Vauxhall’s new design direction, with then-managing director Kevin Wale stating: “The VX Lightning says everything about where Vauxhall is heading.

“The car represents a return to our early performance roots when Vauxhall was famous as the manufacturer of the first true British sports car – while we continue to be both innovative and bold in exterior and interior design.”

Wherever Vauxhall was heading, though, it didn’t include a plan to put the VX Lightning into production. Instead, the VX220 would survive two more years and go down as the final sports car to wear a Vauxhall badge.

Not all was wasted, though. The short-lived Saturn Sky debuted in North America shortly after the Pontiac Solstice with a design reminiscent of the VX Lightning, and it would be exported to Europe as the Opel GT briefly.

Oh, and you could drive the Vauxhall in the Getaway: Black Monday a year after its reveal. At least I’d have that to look forward to at the age of eight.