THE mid 1970s saw the start of the great company car boom.

No job was considered to be up to much if it did not come with a shining example of Britain's best, usually from Ford, Vauxhall or Austin/Morris.

Ford thought it had it all covered with the Cortina until the advent of the second generation Cavalier from Vauxhall which was a real game changer in 1981.

The first generation Cavalier based on the Opel Ascona appeared in the mid 1970s with a different nose designed by top stylist Wayne Cherry.

But nobody was prepared for the whirlwind of interest generated by the second generation Cavalier which was one of those special cars that hit the market at exactly the right time.

The new front-wheel-drive car offered class-leading levels of fuel economy and performance which had previously been unthinkable in its market sector.

It was a huge success and challenged the supremacy of the Ford Cortina as the company car of choice. By 1982, Ford and Vauxhall had an effective two-horse race.

But Ford replaced the Cortina with the Sierra and its more radical styling was not overwhelmingly embraced so the Cavalier overtook the it in sales and in 1984 and again in 1985.

The Cavaliers of this time came with the choice of 1.3 or 1.6-litre engines while for 1983 a 1.8-litre engine was launched, which had electronic fuel injection.

A diesel of 1.6-litres was added about the same time, while the 1.8 was supplemented by a 2.0-litre for the 1987 model year.

The Thatcher government in the UK created a tax break at 1.8-litres, with any company car having a larger engine than this attracting higher personal benefit taxes, thus effectively giving the Cavalier an advantage over its rivals soon after its launch.

By the end of its life cycle, the top of the range version was the powerful 2.0 SRi130, which had 130bhp on tap and could exceed 120mph.

Vauxhall sold 807,624 examples of the second generation Cavalier between 1981 and 1988. By December 1989, it was the third most common car on British roads.

Perhaps one of its notorious aspects is that in 2006 it was named the country's sixth most scrapped car, but it certainly did not disappear at a greater rate than the Skoda Estelle.

The third generation Cavalier of the 1990s shunned the Mark II Cavalier's angular exterior bringing in a more rounded look Despite the loss of its estate option it topped the large-medium family car sales charts in Britain in 1990.

Production of the Cavalier ceased in late 1995 when it was replaced by the Vectra.

This third and final incarnation of the Cavalier was a big improvement over its predecessors in terms of durability, with the rust problems that had plagued Vauxhall for years finally being conquered.