Vauxhall - Chaul End engineering research & test centre

At the end of hostilities in 1945 the Government was faced with demands from British automotive manufacturers for specific testing facilities to develop vehicles for export markets to which, by Government decree, they were being forced to actively expand shipments to. In response, the Government commissioned a new industry body, the Motor Industry Research Association (M.I.R.A.), which combined central funding with that of member manufacturers to build a specific testing facility. The chosen location was Nuneaton in Warwickshire and became partially operational in October 1948 using disused runways and fully operational in 1950. Vauxhall, being part of General Motors, were in a much better position than rivals having already developed an almost Worldwide presence. The M.I.R.A facility was comprehensive but lacked the privacy that was becoming more important in developing new models with increased competition between manufacturers, Vauxhall were aware of this shortcoming in knowing the security employed by General Motors at their Millford proving ground in the US.

In 1953 Maurice Platt became Chief Engineer at Vauxhall Motors and with it a change in thinking about the way Vauxhall developed passenger cars and Bedford trucks. The E Series Wyvern & Velox models introduced in August 1951 were the first truly new post war models to be designed from scratch by Vauxhall but their styling and features had been leaked by the press well in advance of the launch because of the lack of security during testing at M.I.R.A. This situation added the impetus Platt needed to get the agreement of his fellow Directors to make plans for Vauxhall to build its own comprehensive, fully equipped and self-contained proving ground. A small team of Maurice Platt’s Engineering Department was assembled and tasked with finding a suitable site within a reasonable distance from the main Luton facilities.

After several failed attempts, in September 1954 Vauxhall arranged the purchased of a disused 58-acre gravel pit a few miles from Luton near the small village of Caddington called Chaul End. Planning permission was sought and accepted and building work commence within a few months and the centre first opened in February 1956 and later in the year all rough track testing was transferred from Welwyn. At the time, the Vauxhall Chaul End facility along with the M.I.R.A proving ground were the only fully equipped testing grounds in Britain and Vauxhall were one of very few manufacturers in Europe to have their own proving ground.

Chaul End was equipped with a high speed outer circuit, banked on the corners, and with a special straight section used for brake testing. A smaller, circular, steering pad, maintenance workshops, a rough track, weighbridge & ditch crossing for trucks, Belgian pave track, an axle drop test section, a research lab and stress-coat building. Added later were a cab impact test, salt spray, a cross country circuit, a ripple surface track, noise testing strip, a chassis weave test area, an analogue computer room and an on-site isotope lab. While some of the equipment may seem crude and primitive to us today, at the time it was real cutting edge technology.

The first Vauxhall model to be completely developed at Chaul End was the PA Series Cresta & Velox, there was limited production testing of the E Series models and also some later development work on the F Series Victor but all the initial testing was done by GM in the US. The first Bedford was the TK Series, the last was the Bedford CF although extensive testing was done at Holden’s Lang Lang proving ground. The last car to be fully developed at Chaul End was the Victor FD Series, there was some early work done for the HC Viva but was completed at Millbrook. In the following pictures, you can get a glimpse into the activities at Chaul End some long before Millbrook was even thought of.

One would assume that the advent of an even bigger proving ground, at Millbrook, that the facility at Chaul End would be immediately redundant, this wasn't the case however.

All high speed and handling testing was moved to Millbrook but many specialist facilities such as the strain testing laboratories and the first radio isotope centre to be set up in the UK exclusively devoted to motor vehicles were kept in place. As a quote from John Alden Vauxhall Director and Chief Engineer explains:

"In the organisation of the Engineering Department, the Chaul End Research laboratories come within the responsibility of the research and development group. A proportion of the work carried out is related to advanced projects, just because of their specialised knowledge and equipment members of Chaul End render an extended development service to the engineering department as a whole and at times to the whole Vauxhall organisation. Facilities available in the laboratories have been continuously developed and enlarged. Even basically familiar services such as measurements using strain gauges have lost many of their old limitations"

Despite John Alden's defence of keeping Chaul End open, by the late 70s all the research equipment had been moved to Millbrook, after which, for a while at least, the whole place lay idle but was eventually covered with concrete and used for new vehicle storage, as shown on the left, and continued to do so up until very recently when Vauxhall decided to sell the area for house construction.