The 2300 Sport SL was the only version to feature the seven dial dash (speedometer, clock, rev counter, fuel, oil pressure, water temp, & battery charge).

The engine was an inclined four-cylinder with single overhead camshaft and twin Stromberg carburettors, producing 122 bhp (91 kW).

The oversquare straight four engine was renowned for its big torque curve, making the car very flexible and easy to drive.

[citation needed] The nose was moulded from GRP, and featured two pairs of Cibié headlamps behind toughened glass covers.

The car was restyled on the David Jones original by American designer Wayne Cherry and the result was an exceptionally low drag coefficient for its time.

Another unusual feature of the car was the alloy Avon Safety Wheels, which were designed to retain the tyre safely in the event of a puncture.

All production cars were painted in the same colour – Silver Starfire, and featured a largely black interior with silver-grey cloth seats.

An unusual interior feature of dubious utility was the passenger grab handle on the dash in place of the standard glovebox.

However, the fuel crisis of the time meant that suddenly it became very hard to sell gas-guzzling cars like this (even though the aerodynamics increased fuel economy greatly, reducing the power needed to attain its top speed by some 30 hp), and coupled with some production line difficulties in actually building the car meant that sales and delivery were slow, and eventually just 204 examples were built, far short of the 30,000 projected.

Despite the low production run, the aerodynamic qualities and styling of the "droopsnoot" were incorporated, with improved productionisation, into most of Vauxhall's remaining 1970s new models: the Chevette, Cavalier and Carlton.

In South Africa, the local GM subsidiary built the Viva two-door and four-door saloons as the Chevrolet Firenza from January 1971.