The original Cavalier was a relatively strong seller in Britain, even though it never quite matched the runaway sales success of the Ford Cortina, or even the sales figures attained by British Leyland's Morris Marina (which sold well throughout the 1970s despite being widely condemned in the motoring press) but it at least managed to help Vauxhall regain lost ground in a market sector where it had declined during the first half of the 1970s as Victor sales slumped. It also helped repair Vauxhall's image, which had been hit hard in the early 1970s by build quality and reliability issues surrounding cars like the Victor. Nearly 250,000 were sold, though by December 2009 just 373 remained.