Copelin was an American who was well suited to mediate between Luton and Detroit, as he had spent a lot of his life in Europe, and had worked for General Motors Overseas Operations. The time seemed right for a very small vehicle.
Opel, the German subsidiary of GM, had already been working on its own small Kadett since , to compete against the massively popular Volkswagen. I have a feeling that Copelin was the one who encouraged his British colleagues to think the unthinkable: Collaboration with Opel. This was more or less what happened, although Vauxhall only imported the designs, not the actual hardware.
It changed all the metric measurements to inches, even including screw threads, and it did put a genuine British clutch on the car. Kadett top; Viva bottom the-blueprints. This created an overall family resemblance, but initially the collaboration remained a secret, as World War II had ended less than 20 years ago, and many British buyers were not quite ready to embrace German products. For instance, German Krups washing machines were sold in the UK under a different logo that sounded reassuringly British.
I think my father viewed the Viva collaboration with Opel as a one-time thing, forced upon Vauxhall by circumstances. The second model of the Viva, which he initiated but was completed after his retirement, was all-British. Still, an ominous precedent had been established. It had relatively flat body panels and a straight waist line, like a Corvair.
The power train layout was utterly conventional. My father was friendly with Alex Issigonis, the designer of the Austin Mini, which had been the first to use a transverse engine with front-wheel drive; but the collaboration with Opel ruled out any radical ideas of that type.
