4 million copies built, but now quite rare
Almost 15 million units of the Opel Corsa have been built over six generations. More than 4 million of these are an Opel Corsa B: the model of the second generation. He had to replace the successful Corsa A that had remained on the market for no less than 11 years, and he succeeded – at least in the Netherlands – downright well. A look back.
Yes: the second generation Opel Corsa with its strikingly round but barely dated appearance has been around for 30 years. It would not stay on the market as long as its predecessor, but in the Netherlands it became the Corsa, of which the most were sold on average per year. The car was built from 1993 to 2000 for the European market and from 1994 to 2000 more than 14,500 were sold in the Netherlands each year, with 1999 being the peak year with a total of 17,607 registrations. Sales of the Corsa B never actually collapsed.
Still a familiar sight, but how often do you see one now?
And that was also visible on the street. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, you couldn’t ignore the Opel Corsa B. On almost every street corner there was one, more often than not anything but anonymous, with its round shapes highlighted by a striking color. Now more cars in that period got a lot more rounded shapes than their predecessors, but the Corsa made it very colorful. That did not come out of the blue: Opel thought that the Corsa should be more attractive to the female part of the buyer public and thought that it could achieve this with round shapes. It seems to us that the brand was certainly partly right.
From GSi to Eco
Yet 30 years ago, the car also got its hands together on our almost all-male editorial team. When it first came out, we thought it was a fresh appearance that ‘was nothing like its predecessor’, as we recalled in this article in the series Uit de Oude Doos. It also discusses that the Corsa B was a ‘nice driving car’, for which it used only – albeit simple – injection engines. Initially, there was no room for double overhead camshafts or 16-valves in the Corsa, until the GSi 16V was presented quite soon after the original launch.
The GSi 16V was the only version of the Corsa B not to have black plastic on the outside.
Although that variant did not lead to the large sales numbers, it did generate flashy figures in a different way. What about a 0-100 in less than 10 seconds and a peak of almost 200 km / h? At the other end of the spectrum was the Corsa Eco, which, thanks to a 1.2-liter engine with 45 hp, achieved a practical consumption of 1 in 20 or more economically.
Two popular body styles
In any case, the Corsa B was a practically usable car, which as a five-door – with a completely different body and roofline – could offer enough space for at least four adults. It was a lot more spacious than its predecessor and compared to the competition, the Corsa offered quite a bit of practicality. Combine that with the round but apparently generally easy to digest appearance, and the success of the compact Opel should come as no surprise.
As a 3 and 5 door quite different.
Unfortunately for Opel, the Corsa would never be as successful in absolute numbers as the Corsa B, although that is due to more than just the product features. The Corsa still competes nicely in the sales lists and is one of the best-selling models in Europe, mainly due to the fact that you can purchase it as an EV as well as with combustion engines. The name ‘Opel Corsa’ is simply a trusted value in our recent collective automotive memory and the Corsa B has contributed greatly to the creation of that fact.
We have no doubt: among our readers there are undoubtedly many who have memories of the Opel Corsa B. What story can you tell about it?
The Opel Corsa B was also available as a sedan and as the above Caravan, but those two variants were never delivered in the Netherlands.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl