Vauxhall Belmont

The Vauxhall Belmont was a European hatchback saloon in the 1980s.

With hatchbacks now firmly established as the preferred bodystyle in small European family cars, there was less demand for saloons. So during the 1980s, many European manufacturers sold saloon versions of their big selling hatchbacks with different nameplates. Ford's saloon version of the Escort hatchback was badged the Orion and Volkswagen's Golf-based saloon was sold as the Jetta, so it seemed inevitable that Vauxhall/Opel would launch a saloon version of the award winning Astra/Kadett which went on sale across Europe in the autumn of 1984.

Vauxhall/Opel's answer to the Ford Orion and Volkswagen Jetta was the Belmont, which wore the Belmont badge in Britain but was badged as an Opel Kadett in the rest of Europe. Apart from the name it was very much a saloon version of the Astra. The only other major differences were extra rear legroom and a less gloomy interior, but the Belmont was almost as big as a Vauxhall Cavalier. It was mechanically identical to the Astra hatchback, using the same engines, chassis and suspension.

When Vauxhall/Opel introduced an all-new Astra in the summer of 1991, the Belmont nameplate was shelved, having never being able to match its hatchback twin for sales success.

In late 2004, it was revealed that the Belmont was the most stolen car in the United Kingdom in terms of ratio stolen, with 1978 vehicles stolen in 2003, which is around 99 out of every 1000 Belmonts registered.