It was renamed Vauxhall VX Series in 1976 and continued in production until 1978, by which time it had grown significantly and was viewed, at least in its home market, as a larger-than-average family car.

The Victor was replaced in 1978 by the Vauxhall Carlton - essentially a badge engineered version of the Opel Rekord E. The Victor briefly became Britain's most exported car,[1] with sales in markets as far flung as the United States (sold by Pontiac dealers, since Vauxhall had been part of GM from 1925), Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Asian right-hand drive markets, such as Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore.

The Super model had extra chrome trim, notably around the windows; remnants of the signature Vauxhall bonnet flutes ran along the front flanks and the exhaust pipe exited through the rear bumper.

The car was equipped with arm rests on the doors, door-operated courtesy lights, a two-spoke steering wheel, and twin sun visors, It is designed to compete with the Ford Consul Mk2, Austin A55 Cambridge, and the Morris Oxford Series III.

When restyled, as the Series 2, the car lost all its '57 Buick styled bumper pods and the teardrop shaped Vauxhall flutes were replaced by a single chrome side-stripe running nose to tail.

The sculpted "porthole" rear bumper tips, which rusted badly due to exhaust residue, were replaced by plain, straight ones.

Fitted with a single Zenith carburettor it had an output of 55 bhp (41 kW) at 4200 rpm and gained a reputation of giving a long trouble free life.

Most were Supers with column shift and three-speed manual transmission, though some base models were made for government fleet contracts.

It was widely exported, although sales in the US ended after 1961 when Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick came up with home-grown compact models of their own, with the all-new GM "Y" platform (North America).

Wagons, Deluxe sedans and the VX4/90 were rare imports, many under the no-remittance, no overseas exchange, deposit scheme available to consumers at the time.

The FC was the first Vauxhall to use curved side-window glass, allowing greater internal width: the Estate derivative was noted as being especially capacious for its class.

As with the rest of the running gear, the sporting VX 4/90 was developed from the FB series and offered an alloy head, higher compression ratio, twin-Zenith 34IV carburettors, stiffer suspension and additional instruments.

Vauxhall took the VX4/90 seriously enough to offer an optional limited-slip differential, but few cars were ordered with it: the VX4/90 was, by this time, largely overshadowed by the less expensive Ford Cortina GT, which also had a higher profile in race and rally competitions.

Overall, FC survival numbers appear to be less than the F, FB and even FD series, due to bad rust problems, so examples are rare, unfairly forgotten, and undervalued.

[17] The Vauxhall's overall fuel consumption for the test, at 23.1 mpg (10.9 L/100 km) placed it at the bottom of this class by more than 10%, while its manufacturer's recommended retail price of £822 was higher than that asked for the Austin at £804 or for the Ford at £761.

[17]) The overall tone of the test was cautiously positive, with plaudits for the comfort, the lightness of the controls, the (optional) servo-assisted disc/drum brakes and the road holding, but adverse comments concerning the extent of the Victor's propensity to roll and the rather low gearing which accentuated the variability of fuel consumption according to driving style.

New Zealand assembly continued again with the Super with three-speed manual column-shift transmission and bench front seat though some base models - minus the distinctive waistline chrome strips - were also built for government fleet business.

The FD was released at a time when the UK was undergoing a currency crisis as well as increasingly militant labour relations, resulting in rising prices and reduced quality.

The FD Victor was inspired by the contemporary "coke bottle" styling which had emanated from Detroit USA, five years before Ford's Cortina MK III.

The Ventora therefore differed most spectacularly from its siblings through its effortless performance: in that respect it had no obvious direct competitor at or near its price (£1,102 including taxes in February 1968) on the UK market.

From the outside Ventoras can be identified by their wider tyres, a front grille of toothy-harmonica like gaps in place of the Victor's closely packed horizontal bars, fluted inserts in the hubcaps, and a black vinyl roof.

[24] A four-speed box with a floor-mounted gear lever was available at extra cost on the four-cylinder models, although it was included in the overall package for buyers of the Victor 3294 cc estate.

[24] The floor-mounted lever was set well forward to enable it to remain clear of the bench front seat which was standard in the 1599 cc versions.

[27][28][29][30] The earliest known surviving original FD series Victor 2000 is LRU 802F, a January 1968 registered car in Oyster Grey with a Casino Red interior.

The four-speed transmission used the same box and ratios across the range, from the 1759 cc Victor to the torquey 3294 cc Ventora-badged version: contemporary road tests of the four-cylinder cars comment adversely on the wide gap – highlighted on the mountain roads included in the Portuguese route chosen for the car's press launch – between second and third gears.

Changes included an anti-roll bar as standard equipment on all but the entry-level models, and stiffer springs at the back, intended to compensate for the Victor's tendency to understeer.

[32] At the front the springing remained soft by the standards of the time: the track was widened (by 1.7 inches / 4 cm) and wheel geometry modified to incorporate "anti-dive action", improvements intended to address the Victor's tendency to wallow, which by then was attracting criticism from performance-oriented commentators.

[36] World energy crises, falling exports and an increasingly muddled image led to Vauxhall's decline during the early 1970s, such that sales of the FE slumped to 55,000 units before it was transformed to the VX series in January 1976.

At the start of 1976 the relatively large 1800 cc Vauxhall Victor came with a recommended sticker price lower than that of the more modern but smaller and relatively well equipped Vauxhall Cavalier GL, which will have encouraged fleet managers to negotiate for higher discounts on the Cavalier and left the basic Victor looking embarrassingly underpriced.

A special version of the FE was the one-off 1974 Repco Holden-engined Ventora, nicknamed "Big Bertha", built to compete in the "Super Saloon" category of British motor sport.