Brand snobbery follows Vauxhall around, perhaps best articulated by the suggestion of: ‘Why don’t they just make them Opels?’
It’s true that this badge-swapping relationship is problematic when Opel-Vauxhall is trying to market one brand as German and another as British. I’ve watched a CEO flounder in handling the ‘what about Vauxhall, then?’ follow-up question after waxing lyrical about Opel’s ‘Germanness’.
Yet to suggest Vauxhall should give up 122 years of history is folly. It has its problems, but trying to solve them will be a darn sight simpler than trying to build Opel as a brand in the UK.