Four all-time classic Vauxhall models representing the highlights of over a century’s uninterrupted UK car manufacture have gone on display at the country’s foremost collection of historic vehicles.

The cars will become a core part of a special display at the newly reopened British Motor Heritage Centre at Gaydon, Warks, celebrating car manufacturing in Britain. Vauxhall’s parent company, GM, currently builds almost 300,000 vehicles a year in the UK, with production of the Astra hatchback (Vauxhall’s best-selling model) and Astravan at Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, and the Vivaro van and its variants in Vauxhall’s spiritual home of Luton, Bedfordshire.

The four cars come from Vauxhall’s own private Heritage Centre, based in Luton. The centre is home to over 60 classic cars and commercial vehicles, ranging from the very first 1903 6hp Vauxhall through to recent additions such as the last-ever Monaro VXR.

Each of the cars selected for the Gaydon display represents an important era in Vauxhall’s history. The oldest vehicle is the 1911 C-Type Prince Henry and is the earliest known survivor of its type.

Much less stately, but no less important, the Luton-built H-Type 10hp from 1937 was the first ever unitary construction car, setting the precedent for modern manufacturing techniques, while the third car to join the collection, the 1953 E-Type Wyvern, clearly shows how US car design influenced European styling. Finally, the newest model to join the display is a vivid yellow example of the 1979 Vauxhall Viva. The Viva is the car for which the Ellesmere Port plant was first constructed, and the HC model on display at Gaydon is the last of the line.

The cars will be on display at the BMHC until May 2008, after which they will return to Luton.