‘During 2015, we expect to sell more than 1,000 new vehicles per hour, 24 hours per day,’ said Mary Barra, GM’s CEO. ‘This adds up to nearly ten million vehicles, the most in our history. I look at this extraordinary volume as ten million opportunities to prove what kind of company we are and to say thank you.’

GM’s purchase of Vauxhall 1925 was marked out as the American company’s first overseas acquisition. 10 years into GM ownership it produced the DY and DX models, the first British cars with independent front suspension. Two years later the H-type was launched, the first British car to have an integral body and chassis.

However, the carmaker says its most significant significant achievement among its 112 years of continuous vehicle production, including during both World Wars, was probably when it manufactured the D-type Army Staff Car and Churchill Tank respectively from its Kimpton Road plant in Luton.

Today, Vauxhall’s Vivaro van is still built on Kimpton Road, with a further five million vehicles produced by the company’s Ellesmere Port plant since it opened in 1964.

And the company has sold nearly 14.5 million vehicles in its own right.

‘Vauxhall has made a significant contribution to GM’s success, and we are very proud to be part of its global family,’ said Tim Tozer, Vauxhall’s chairman and managing director.