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Kate Moss has been perhaps the most glamorous assistant in the perpetuation of an 80-year-old myth surrounding that great British car marque, Vauxhall.

The Croydon supermodel appeared with her peers in a campaign in the early-90s that was intended to help the marque stand out as a mid-market car of distinction.

Yet Vauxhall is not all it first appears. Rather than being British, it has had a US parent, General Motors, since 1925. And since the early 70s, its ads have disguised the fact that were it not for the presence of a griffin badge, its cars would be Opels, GM's European marque.

Although Vauxhall's enduring popularity has been about getting the right product on the roads, its marketing can claim some responsibility - and that marketing has been undeniably British. But, faced with plummeting sales and increased pressure from rivals, Vauxhall's future advertising is likely to take on a distinctly European flavour.

With losses mounting at GM - last month it posted a third-quarter deficit of $1.6bn (£900m), bringing its losses for the year to more than $3bn (£1.7bn) - cuts have had to be made, and UK campaigns are now a luxury it feels it can no longer afford.

Consolidated creative

Following the appointment of Alain Visser as Opel's executive director of European marketing in June 2004, it has been decided that from September a single campaign will be created for Opel, and adapted for Vauxhall.

Each campaign will be pitched out to a number of roster agencies; their work will then be altered and run across Europe by McCann-Erickson.

Advertising and car industry insiders are already questioning whether a pan-European strategy is the right way to go.

David Gillingwater, director of strategy at design and branding consultancy Marketplace, says that even if this catch-all work is cheaper, consumers prefer local activity. 'Look at Lexus,' he says. 'Its advertising in the US is completely different from that in the UK. People see their cars differently in each country; they don't buy them in the same way they do Coca-Cola.'

Pitches are in play for a number of Vauxhall/Opel models, including the Corsa, Astra and Antara. All pitches will take in an agency roster of Delaney Lund Knox Warren, McCann and Lowe. Paris agency Marcelle and 180 in Amsterdam are also likely to be involved.

A number of projects have already been farmed out in this way, with work for the Zafira and the Opel Performance Centre's high-performance cars going to McCann, and DLKW picking up the Vectra and Astra TwinTop. DLKW has already created a Corsa campaign.

The main loser in the UK seems to be Vauxhall's marketing department, whose power has been diminished, as all activity, including dealership material, is being run through Frankfurt.

Vauxhall and Opel were unable to comment on the situation, but insiders claim the creative work has fallen below expectations. 'The local dealers hate it. Everyone had great relationships with their agencies,' says one. 'Even the central Opel people are disappointed; because they can choose from lots of different agencies, they are expecting a sparkling winner in terms of creative work, but that is very rare.'

Question of consistency

One danger of using several agencies is that the advertising can become disjointed. To counter this, McCann has been given a brief to produce a set of guidelines on advertising in an attempt to keep everything in line.

Although converting its ads to either the Opel or Vauxhall variety is simple enough, it does raise a question: now that advertising has been brought under Opel's roof, could GM achieve further cost cuts by phasing out the Vauxhall brand altogether, in favour of Opel?

'To someone sitting in (GM headquarters in) Detroit, Vauxhall must look like an anomaly,' says John Wormald, managing director of automotive analyst Autopolis. 'The cars are Opels, anyway; Vauxhall has very little to do with them. A lot of people must ask why it is keeping this funny Vauxhall brand when it has a perfectly good brand in Opel.'

Wormald concedes that the UK market is still big enough to sustain a separate name, and points to the case of Australia, where GM retains the Holden brand. 'Vauxhall is a similarly well-liked brand in the UK,' says Wormald. Indeed, Vauxhall has 12.5% of the UK market and last year registered 325,000 cars.

However, the situation must be viewed in the context of the woes of GM, which is in danger of losing its crown as the world's biggest car-maker to Toyota. Its main aim is to rationalise, building platforms that can be run anywhere in the world and taking away local autonomy.

Although using Opel's advertising will be the closest thing to an identity change that Vauxhall will experience for now, it is likely that in time its British brand values will be watered down.

This would leave the marque in a weakened position just as other car companies are ploughing into the UK market with big plans and even bigger spends. As one insider says: 'Do you think Honda or BMW would get the advertising and sales they do if they worked in the same way as GM?'

TIMELINE - VAUXHALL

1894: Vauxhall Iron Works founded.

1903: Vauxhall produces its first car, a two-seater priced £136.

1925: The company is purchased by General Motors.

1941: Vauxhall designs and builds the Churchill tank, producing more than 5000 for the war effort.

1951: The company's annual production of cars reaches its highest level of 100,000.

1963: 1.5m Vauxhall Vivas built, as it becomes one of the most popular mass-market cars of the 60s.

1970: Opel cars introduced under the Vauxhall brand.

1975: Vauxhall Cavalier launches.

1980: Astra, Vauxhall's first front-wheel drive car, makes its debut.

2002: Vectra launches.