The Vauxhall Cadet is the Vauxhall that answered a simple question — how much car can this badge carry? — with 42.0 bhp @ 3,300 rpm. from 2,048 cc 6-cylinder in-line ohv. It was built from 1930, when streamlining and independent suspension were arriving together.
How it came about
The Vauxhall Cadet VY is an automobile produced by Vauxhall from 1930 until 1933. It was an entirely new model announced by Vauxhall on 6 October 1930. The first Vauxhall priced below £300, it was intended to supplement the existing 24 h.p. 20-60 thereafter to be known as the Vauxhall Eighty.
When exported it was usually supplied with a 27 h.p. engine and named VX. The first truly new Vauxhall since General Motors' purchase of the business in 1925, it was an American-style car with certain local amendments. The mascot on the Cadet's radiator cap became the (two-dimensional) BOAC Speedbird logo.
The hardware
The engine is 2,048 cc 6-cylinder in-line ohv; the output is 42.0 bhp @ 3,300 rpm.; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. On the scales it comes to 26 cwt. Drive goes through a Single dry-plate clutch, three forward speed gearbox, synchromesh on 2 and 3 from end 1931 / open propeller shaft with Hardy Spicer universals and final drive through a spiral beve. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 8' 11", 107 in / Track 4' 8", 56 in / Ground clearance 8½", 8.5 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
In the Vauxhall line-up the Vauxhall Cadet has a clear place: it replaced the None, a move downmarket; it handed the line to the Vauxhall Big Six 20 h.p. and Vauxhall Light Six. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the British Motor Corporation Austin 12/6, the British Motor Corporation Austin 16. Its Vauxhall stablemates include the Vauxhall 10-4 and the Vauxhall 30/98.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the Vauxhall Cadet — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.