Vauxhall aims to return to the UK’s top three car brands
New boss plans to “put Vauxhall back on the podium” with huge retail push and new models
New Frontera is expected to become Vaxuhall’s second-best-selling model
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3 mins read
23 October 2025
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The new managing director of Vauxhall wants to return the brand to its historic position as one of the UK’s best-selling car manufacturers, following a slump since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Steve Catlin, who took the helm of the brand in June, told Autocar: “My intention is to put Vauxhall back on the podium. That’s not an immediate aspiration that we’re going to deliver next year, but over the next few years, I want to get Vauxhall back onto the podium.”
Catlin faces a significant task: according to data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the three best-selling brands in the UK up to the end of September were Volkswagen, BMW and Kia.
Third-placed Kia has sold 93,000 cars this year, compared with Vauxhall’s 66,000 – so there is much work to be done for Vauxhall to return to its previous position. Indeed, it is currently being outsold by its sibling brand, Peugeot.
“We’re a unique brand in that we are only here for the UK, and we need to deliver that additional performance,” said Catlin.
Asked how the brand plans to achieve such growth, Catlin highlighted a focus on retail buyers and dealers, rather than the historical concentration on fleets.
He said: “The UK market is a complex market. There’s fleet channels and retail channels, and there’s sub-channels within that. I think there’s been a tendency historically for Vauxhall to be concentrated on a few of those channels and not all of them, sometimes to the detriment of the retail market.
“It’s my intention to not only deliver the growth, but to do that in the retail marketplace, really activating the amazing team of retailers that we’ve got – 200 partners out there – to energise and engage them to help us deliver that ambition.”
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Key to that ambition is the first UK-focused marketing campaign in “a decade at least”.
“Rather than taking any kind of generic advertising [from German parent Opel], we’re doing something that is specifically about Vauxhall,” said Catlin. “I think if we can do that next year, we can add some emotional connection to all of the rational reasons as to why a Vauxhall is a great purchase.”
A wave of new and updated models will also be critical. Catlin predicted that the incoming Frontera – which is larger than the Mokka crossover, but also cheaper – will become the brand’s second-best-selling car next year, behind the Corsa. For reference, Autocar understands nearly 30,000 Corsas were registered in the UK last year, followed by 20,000 Mokkas. If the Frontera splits the difference between the two, that alone would nearly bridge Vauxhall’s gap to Kia.
The relaunch of the GSE performance sub-brand with a 276bhp derivative of the Mokka will also provide Vauxhall with something of a halo model, suggested Catlin. He said: “Vauxhall has got a great history in the hot hatch market. Everybody that you talk to – certainly of my generation – has got a story with Nova SRs and cool cars in that part of the market. That is a part of the brand that’s been missing and ultimately it helps because it creates some aspiration and emotion.
“You can then start to see some of those cars’ attributes trickling down the range and that helps to create demand for the other trim levels as well. We might in the future look at adding styling cues from GSE into some of our lower trim levels so that you can buy into the sub-brand without having to aim for the full monty.”
