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The Vauxhall Cavalier was a family car and available across three generations from 1975 to 1995. The Cavalier was designed to compete directly with the Ford Cortina, and at one time in the late 1970s and the following decade, the bulk of the company cars on the roads of Britain was either Cavalier or Cortina.

The Cavalier Mk 3 was available as a saloon and hatchback and launched in October 1988. It was Vauxhall's version of the Opel Vectra "A", the latter introducing the ‘Vectra’ name which would eventually replace Cavalier at the end of Mk 3 production. Despite the lack of an estate body style, the Cavalier topped the large medium family car sales charts in Britain in 1990, narrowly outselling the Ford Cortina’s successor, the Sierra.

After twenty years and three generations, the Vauxhall Cavalier came to an end in October 1995, when it was replaced by the Vectra. This car is one of the more luxurious models in the range, the CDX, fitted with a V6 petrol engine displacing 2.6 litres, but it was also available with either a 2.0 litre petrol unit, or a 1.7 litre turbocharged diesel.