Hi I live in Britain and in the UK we have Vauxhall but the rest of Europe when I go on holiday ive been to Greece, Spain, Cyprus and France and they all seem to have Opel why is that?
plus is there a difference, is one better than the other?
The Vauxhall and Opel brand names belong to General Motors. Vauxhall was originally a British company. Opel was European, so GM have stuck with the familiar names in their former home countries.
Vauxhall was a UK motor company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_Motors
Opel was a German company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel
They both got taken over by GM (US General Motors) or more correctly
GM had bought Vauxhall, and GM became the Majority shareholder in Opel
And for a while in the 80's they rebranded most if not all Vauxall cars Opel.
eg the then new Vauxhall Nova became the Opel Corsa within a few years,
the name it had always had on the continent of Europe.
Clearly someone in marketing has decided that using the old British name might fool some into thinking it is a more 'local'/less European car !
Exactly the same car, exactly the same build and factories..... well except LH/RH drive...
perhaps (cynically) an argument to price it differently (*) is the underlying reason.
(*) the EU demands that all products have the same price throughout the EU.
So by calling it something different, perhaps they can price it differently.
Johnnie walker does it with Red Label and Black Label whisky...
one for UK, one for outside UK.