For some reason, I have had a fascination with Daewoos for almost 25 years. When the company first started selling cars in Britain in the mid 1990s, they had a memorable advertising slogan, "That'll be the Daewoo", incredibly cheap prices and a completely different after sales package from everyone else. I saw an Espero and a Nexia at the NEC Motor Show in 1994, and they really didn't look too bad.
These early cars, despite the fact that they were little more than dressed up 1980s Vauxhalls (General Motors had owned Daewoo for some time by that point) were smart-looking and most intriguing. They offered class-leading levels of standard equipment and three years' servicing, three years' breakdown cover and a three year warranty all included in the price, which was unheard of at the time. Granted, the sales model, where staff were not paid on commission and the prices were fixed, was a bit strange, but it was at least a brave effort from a completely new company to the European market.
Soon, Daewoo divested itself from General Motors, and embarked on an enormously ambitious programme to replace all their models with in house designs (styled by Ital Design in Italy) within a year, and in 1998 the Lanos appeared. This range of three and five door hatchbacks, as well as a four door saloon, was sold in many markets around the world, and whilst it still had a General Motors designed engine, everything else was unique. It was the same size as a Honda Civic, but the pricing was more akin to a Honda Logo, their smallest car at the time.
It was a shame that the Nubira, Leganza, Matiz and Lanos were not ultimately more successful, as Daewoo was bankrupt by 2002 and had to be bought out by General Motors again (buying fellow Korean maker Ssangyong during their independence probably didn't help), but cars from this period do have their own fascination. By 2005, all Daewoos were rebranded as Chevrolets in Europe, and by 2010, every single model designed in their independent period had been replaced by better quality and more stylish Vauxhall and Opel derived products, but ultimately the Daewoo stigma never quite wore off, and in 2014, Chevrolet pulled out of most of Europe. The only remnants these days of Daewoo is in Uzbekistan of all places, where the Daewoo Nexia is still being manufactured (along with several other former Daewoos and Chevrolets) under the Ramon brand. For most of us, however, these vehicles are firmly in the past.
When searching for a suitable vehicle for the Santa Pod Run What Ya Brung event (this means looking in the sub-£500 section of Auto Trader), I came across a Lanos in South London, and decided to have a look. These cars are now extremely rare, and well maintained ones are even more so. This one had done around 70,000 miles and had a nearly full service history with a cambelt change, most unusual for one of these.
On the test drive, the 1.6 litre former General Motors engine was clearly not in the best of health with a rough idle and being low on coolant. This, coupled with a gearbox with a very worn second gear, a steering wheel which had almost disintegrated through lack of use, tracking which was clearly off and a general feeling of looseness did not endear me to the car enough to put in an offer. The fact that it was going to need a service before heading off to Santa Pod for its own sake meant that I handed back the keys and walked away, with my curiosity satisfied but my wallet still very firmly closed to the charms of this forgotten Korean brand.
