The Vauxhall Cavalier was a family car and available across three generations from 1975 to 1995. The Cavalier was designed to compete directly with the Ford Cortina, with the Mk 1 appearing in 1975 and the Mk 2, in 1981. It was based on the General Motors ‘J-body’ - a platform used by GM for cars of a similar size and adapted by other manufacturers.

Unlike the first version of the Cavalier which was rear-wheel drive and used the cast iron ‘camshaft in head’ engine from the Opel GT, the new car was front-wheel drive and used a transverse engine with the end-on gearbox from the smaller Astra model. Between 1984 and 1985, the Cavalier Mk 2 was Britain's second best-selling car (behind the Ford Escort) and, when supplanted by the Mk 3 in 1988, 807,624 examples had been sold. Indeed, by the end of 1989, the Vauxhall Cavalier was the third most common model of car on British roads.

This Cavalier Mk 2 is a top-of-the-range luxury model, called the CDi, and fitted with a 1.8-litre, electronic fuel-injected engine and automatic transmission.