If you are old enough you will smile when you hear the words Opel Boss and Superboss. Opel really bossed the local race tracks in the late ’80s and early ’90s, driven by Mike Briggs, Grant McCleery and Farouk Dangor, among others. Opel was a big deal in SA. And the brand is still very much around.
Opel actually sells eight vehicle types in SA, from the little Combo Life van to the Zafira Life van, with four models in the car line-up between the two vans.
The Corsa is the small hatchback in the present range. We drove the spirited GS Line 1.2T.
Opel changed the small car segment when the Corsa was launched in 1982, and is in its sixth generation but now part of Stelantis, and so shares bits and bobs with the Peugeot 208, including architecture. This is a good thing as costs are reduced and quality can be improved. The one brand is more sporty, the other more luxury orientated.
The Corsa, without a doubt, is a good-looking hatch, inside and out. Several times passersby said to me that the car is good looking. The folks at Russelsheim have done good designs over the years and that experience shows in this car. Nothing fancy, everything “just so”. A nice touch is the colour-coded strip splitting the top of the dash with the bottom half, which matches the body paint. In our case a white strip.
The cabin is best described as elegantly practical and simple. Smart too. The 10” infotainment screen and digital instrument panel are both crisp and clear. Android Auto works well. The switches, knobs, stalks and other controls feel solid and make life easy. I enjoyed having real physical buttons for the radio and ventilation system. The cabin is really good and appears to be well put together. The only issue I have is the head and knee room at the back. There really is not much of either. This is more a car for two people to enjoy, because it is fun to drive and delivers sprightly performance and yet remains docile when required. Very well balanced.
The Corsa GS Line has a more sprightly developed version of the 1.2 L turbopetrol engine working through a six-speed auto box to deliver 96 kW and 230 Nm to the front wheels giving a claimed combined fuel consumption of 6,3 l/100 km. You will only ever see this consumption on a long trip though, expect around 9 l/100 km in town. My average consumption was just above 7 l/100 km.
The Corsa is available in three trim levels. The Lite starts the range with an impressive specification list. Edition models add equipment and style elements while the new GS Line has boosted performance and the ultimate features and really does feel sporty, but not at the level of a GTI or Swift Sport. Having said that, the steering is brilliantly weighted and the throttle response very well calibrated.
Performance feels more sporty more than it actually is, but that is not a criticism. Just don’t expect a race ready machine, its more of a nippy, snazzy urban runabout.
The Corsa has all the safety equipment you would want, from a very good lane assist, to 360° camera, blind-spot alert and high-tech brakes and more.
In short as Mark Jones of the The Citizen put it so well in his report: “The Corsa GS Line is a good car that finds itself at the wrong place at the wrong time in a world gone SUV mad.”
You can tell from this review that I liked this car, but my worry is that there is just too much competition and too little marketing behind the Opel brand for it to break through. It does not help that it feels a little on the pricey side of the equation. Most definitely, if you are in the small car market it is worth a test drive. It is up against its sister the Peugeot 208, the Toyota Starlet and Suzuki Baleno siblings,
Volkswagen’s perennial top selling Polo, the lovely but underrated Mazda 2, very practical Honda Fit and the Hyundai i20. Maybe even the Suzuki Swift 1.4T Sport, which will drive circles round most of the list including the Corsa.
The base model Corsa Lite 1.2T 74 kW 6MT costs R374 900, the middle-of-the-range Edition is R394 900, while the apex varient the Corsa GS Line 1.2T 96kW 6AT is R459 900.
All Opels have a five-year 100 000 km warranty and three-year 45 000 km service plan.
