This is a car that gives me lot's of memory's. Back in 1993 my grandad asked the local Opel dealer to give him a call when the first Corsa B would arrive. So when he got the call he grabbed 10 year old me, we jumped in his Corsa A and drove off to the dealer. When we arrived they just started cleaning the car to put it in the showroom. It was a steel gray Corsa B 1.2 Swing 5 doors. We had a short look and the first thing my grandad did was taking a stack of money out of his pocket and said to the dealer: I want this one, when can i have it 😁 A small week later he could pick it up, so he was one of the first in Belgium to own a Corsa B.
I always liked this model. Here in New Zealand, they were badged as a Holden Barina. The were way way waaaay more luxurious than your Corsa because they had a glove box lid. Fancy
Funny story about Chevy and the spark to be precise If you lower a Mk1 Fabia vrs like me then the original drop links no longer fit and instead you are required to use Chevy spark drop links as they have the same mounting bracket’s but slightly shorter
Back in 2013, when I was living in Spain, I too made a long roadtrip in a borrowed Corsa B (but an Opel, naturally). Me and my then wife borrowed it from a friend of ours in Girona to go via the Cote Azur down to the outskirts of Rome, where the would-be boy-friend of our little Italian Greyhound girl lived. The journey was long and quite tiresome, but one of those I will never forget - the road was absolutely breathtaking all the way! The doggy boy-friend, though very eager, could not do his part of the deal and there were no puppies made... The Corsa on the other hand was the perfect car for the small Italian town we visited - any larger and it would have been impossible to navigate the streets or find a parkingspot. - I still dream of taking a trip on the same road again - but maybe not in a Corsa B the next time. 😅
Sold in Australia as the Holden Barina. A popular car. My old boss had one, we nick named it the "golf cart" as it always had a set of golf clubs in the back. I think his was a 1.5L. a fun car car to drive just not exceptionally quick.
I had one of these, but with a Courtney Sport tuned C20LET Calibra turbo engine and F28 6 speed gearbox. It was an absolute beast and could beat most things to 100mph, it actually handled the power very well for a car that was never meant to have that engine in it. Great 90's sleeper fun!
My mum had one of these for years. Hers had the 1.5D engine so it was very slow but very economical. It was eventually scrapped due to corrosion and the last time we saw it it was being used by the local fire station to practice cutting people out of cars!
Chalk up another "I passed my test in a Corsa B" - on 30th January 1997. It was the third Corsa B I'd driven at that point - one for an initial assessment, and my instructor changed his part-way through my lessons - also, we had a family friend who let me practice in his MkIII Astra (higher spec than last year's FOTU winner, mind), and my first car was a pov-spec Nova. So by the end of March it'd only been six months since I first sat behind the wheel... and I'd driven five different Vauxhalls. My brother got a raw deal three years later. He passed his test in a Metro. No, I'm not going to call it a Rover 100. It's a Metro and it'll always be a Metro.
I remember also taking my driving lessons in one of these back in the late 90s. BSM use to upgrade their cars every six months at the time. My instructor one day turned up with the upgraded Corsa, which had the air bag, power steering and a bit more bhp being a 1.4. We still didn't get ABS on it, suppose you couldn't have everything. Now drive a 16 plate Corsa sting 1.2 and being rather base you still don't get a light in the boot!
Ah lovely, I bought a brand new 5 door in 1994 in glorious 'Rainbow Blue' (PURPLE!). IIRC I don't think it had intermittent wipe which at the time, I put down to it being built in Spain 😂
In 2010 I bought my daughter a Corsa B 'Breezer' edition for her first car. It cost £1000 and we sold it 2 years later for £1000. Great little car without all the fancy rubbish that goes wrong in modern cars.
I would like to see you rag that round some of your favourite Welsh roads, I am sure it would live up to "Power, less is more". Miss Hubnut clearly comes from fine heritage.
I'd passed mine four years previously in a rebadged Suzuki Cultus right before they'd started the Geo label here in the US. until last November, it was the smallest thing I'd ever driven.
Around 2000 I had an internship at a Opel dealer and these were around a lot. Testdrove pretty much all variants but never saw a poverty spec quite like this. Guess that was limited to some markets. Always kept a soft spot for them.
Nostalgia understood, Ian. I took driving lessons and passed my test, first time, in a Renault 5 TL in 1981, and have never had the chance to drive one since then.
These were sold in Australia as the Holden Barina. The base model was known as the Swing, then I think the next model up was the CD, maybe? There was a GSI version, and also a cabrio version as well, which, AFAIK, was modified here in Australia.
@HubNut that's really cool! Holden was trying to get the buying public to believe that these were a competitor to the VW Golf Cabrio. Not many people were convinced though, especially considering the 1.4 litre that powered those cars was lethargic at best. I haven't seen one on the road for many years now, but I imagine there's one or two stashed away here and there.
Hi hubnut, love the videos, i also have fond memories of this car, back in 2009 when i was 18 my best mate had one of these also in white, i had a bmw e36, anyway we went on holiday with our girlfriends to my grandparents static caravan on the norfolk coast. One day we went to the supermarket about 5 miles down the road 5 of us crammed in this corsa, i was in the front and me and my mate were chatting and he didnt realise that the cars in front had slowed rather quickly we were only doing about 25mph at the time but i said to him, watch out these cars have stopped mate, anyway he could never quite stop in time and no abs didnt help im sure and we slammed straight into the back of a brand new 7 series which the man had only had for 3 days 😂, while my mate was out the car i was trying not to burst out laughing still sitting in the corsa because of all the cars he had to hit that one ,luckily the bmw driver just wiped a white scuff off his back bumper, but the corsa had a bent bonnet and my mate drove it everwhere for 3 more years like it 😂, thanks hubnut for reminding me of the best days of my life
I did a very similar thing also being 18 in 2009! Went into the back of a brand new Mercedes CLS in Tesco car park at about 10mph. I was in my 1993 Fiat Uno with two mates, and it didn’t leave a mark on my car, but shame for the Merc owner he had a dented and scuffed rear bumper. The way he shouted and swore at me he was lucky not to leave with a dented and scuffed face haha!! Good times.
We also owned a R reg white Corsa Merit 1.2 8v in 5 door guise. I remember the engine being fairly torquey. It would quite happily pull along at 30 MPH in top gear. I passed my test in a 1.4 8v ls Corsa.
Noice. 👍 Very suitable steed for FOTU. We hired a Cavalier in UK in 1995. I really enjoyed driving it. Lovely 5 speed change. BTW. Ads have appeared mid way through your videos now. Been like that for a while. One group of 2 ads in this one. I guess you changed your settings but just letting you know in case RU-vid has snuck them in without your knowledge.
Love the Corsa B. From the owner of the blue one who was at your social earlier in the year and whose son passed his test 2 weeks ago and is currently out cruising the mean streets of Berkshire in it.
I had one of these! Exactly the same - colour, spec, everything; although here in Australia it was the Holden Barina. Great ride quality and very frugal fuel consumption (650-700 km on a tank). It even had the blanking plate on the boot light and the worn out gear lever “scrotum” (we also later had a Holden/Vauxhall Astra with the same problem (feature?). Those little vents on the interior door handle actually hid tiny tweeters, which I discovered when I upgraded the audio. I also installed a glovebox door I found at the scrapyard! A lovely little trip down memory lane, thank you!
Passed my test in a Corsa B in 1997 and it was also an R reg. Red, iirc. Lovely and calming driving instructor, spent much of my test blocked in by a refuse lorry that had got stuck down a narrow lane
One of a long series of cars badged as a Holden Barina in Australia. The Suzuki Swift based first ones established a good reputation fir the car. The rep drifted down just a bit with the Corsa based ones but took a massive dive from the Daewoo based cars. The curse of sourcing cars from Daewoo being a very large part of the reason Holden collapsed. Not retaining customers in the growing market segments that the Daewoo sourced cars were to represent Holden in.
Just reading the title I thought a Opel Corsa B would be the most unexceptional car I can think of.. it was the most "popular" car in my age group at the time especially the Grand Slam version in that purple metallic color.. half of my friends had one as their first car.. and they all hated it.. the bumpers would oxidize so bad they went from dark grey to almost white in 5 years.. a lot of them came with those super ugly 3 spoke alloy wheels and I know of at least two examples where the engine would just randomly shut off from time to time. All in all one of my least favorite cars of all time. The other cars filling the same niche here were mostly VW Golfs (MK2, 3, 4) and the Ford Fiesta `89 (despite being pretty old at that time)..
My neighbour had one with the intermittent shut down. Pull over, turn ignition on and off and away it went again. I did clean the auto gearbox position switch that was supposed to cause it, but it still played up. Was quite a nice little car to drive, but made in Europe means dodgy electricals.
Actually no, the Corsa B is the car with the best cupholders I have ever driven. They're exactly sized so the standard "big" paper cup of McDonald's and Burger King fits so snuggly in them, you can go any desired speed and not spill a drop. They only come with the glovebox, as they're in the glovebox lid. Actually (at least here in Germany) there were really high spec models of these. Mine had electric windows, leather seats (heated too) an electric sunroof, alloy wheels, a stereo with a CD changer and metallic paint plus a revvy (if not too strong) 1.2 16V engine. It even handled well, as it was equipped with gas shocks.
This takes me back aswell Ian. I actually learned and passed my test in 1998 in a brand new "R" reg corsa exactly like this in white but had the 1.4 engine as my instructor had just got it from the dealer 2 days prior. Also i started and had my first lesson on my 17th birthday 😊😊
44 bhp from a 1.2 ohc petrol engine? In comparison, I've got a 1968 Morris Minor Traveller with an A series engine, that knocks out 45 bhp. Is it this because of de-tuning in the interests of economy? In comparison, my 2015 Ford Grand C Max 1.6 diesel knocks out 115 bhp, my previous Zafira 1.9CDTi Elite knocked out 150 bhp.
Wow!😱 That is as sparse as they come!👎 You don't even get a lid for the glovebox.👎 😨 Never mind calling it a merit, it should've been called a penalty instead IMO.🤔👍 😂😁🤪 I know it's less things to go wrong,👍 but that's taking the biscuit.👎😂 Who walks into a car showroom & orders the most basic car they sell? A person who is the first one out of the taxi, & the last one in the pub, that's who! Lol🤪😁😄😆😅
Its semi independent rear suspension which allowed a slightly lower boot floor pan.Thats the reason for the ability to have the full size steel or alloy spare wheel.
This was the 1997 facelift mk1 Corsa (the mk2 emerging in 2000). And your right the 1.0 3cyl 12v petrol was added at this time-not being part of the original mk1 range. And yes they messed around with the 1.4 petrol as well. I think 2 diesels were available? A big old 1.7 and a smaller but more modern 1.5tdi…..but I maybe wrong!
God I miss the smell of Network Q engine oil. I always preferred the interior smell of Vauxhalls compaired to Ford's. A Land Rover (Rover era) smells sweeter but the transit engined and with plastic dash Reeks of Ford smell. The Ruby Wax adverts 😂
I learnt to drive in one of the first Vauxhall Corsas in 1995. Terrible car. No Power Steering and would jump put of Gear at any speed. Painfully slow too. My Mum's Fiat Uno rang rings around it.
I passed my test in one of these in 2005 but i have to say ive never been a fan .... i baught a 1996 renault clio 1.2 rn off my landlady and i loved thay car ❤ It had just 40 k on the clock She sold it to me for just £50 because it wouldnt start and nobody could fix it.... i found it was the immobiliser lost communication with the key... i sorted it and il never forget the forst time that car started it was magic ... thats where my love affair with this clio began ... i miss it and been looking to buy one but the price of those now ! Astronomical in many cases
ahhhh... the good old Holden SB Barina. Notorious in Australia for being completely unsuitable for local conditions due to its poor reliability and extreme difficulties wrt air conditioning implementation. The 1.2 couldn't handle aircon at all, and the 1.4 ended up with locally developed aircon that was once described as being "like an asthmatic blowing through a drinking straw". No wonder the Hyundai Excel and Ford Festiva cut the Barina's lunch, despite those two having inferior road manners. "Unexceptional" indeed.
Absolutely perfect and poverty White as well. We used to have a 1992 Peugeot 106 1.1 with a 4 speed and it was grand on a long run. Luckily for passengers my Wife and I are 5 feet and 5 feet 4 inches respectively. Boot? Yes it had one.
You were lucky, I did my tests on Fiat 126p all along...in a city centre with trams....being village boy ..first time I failed. How? I knew the weight/power ratio and used my common sense landing on wrong lane which was not marked as such.... but hey in 126p you have no choice but to act if the chance is given.
Sorry, I drove many of them in different guises back in the day. It's a pretty car in 3 door form, but otherwise absolutely dreadful with few redeeming features. There were better small hatchbacks. So, perfect for FOTU!
Ahhhhh.......the Vauxhall Corsa. Known to us antipodeans as the Holden Barina. I drove one as a company car - slightly more up-spec'd than that one, but not by much as it still had the 1.2 litre growler under the bonnet. I fitted longer wiper blades to it so that the Area of Disappointment above the swept area was minimised and the sweep overlapped properly so there was no triangle of doom either. I had to be rather precise though because there wasn't much distance between the two blades when parked and I didn't want an overhang off the passenger's side either as I think that looks naff! I think I ended up adjusting the passenger's wiper arm (with the help of a vice and a hammer) so that the blade was canted up on a 20 degree angle (ie: low end to centre and high end on the outside edge) when parked, but it fit on the screen, didn't foul the driver's wiper, wiped higher on the screen and didn't look out of place. Amazing how much a wiper function can bother someone and the lengths they will go to fix it, isn't it?! Anyway, always thought they weren't a bad wee car - a bit gutless on the hills, so working the 'box was mandatory and became second nature, but a sound car all the same. Unlike the bigger Vectra, these little cars didn't seem to have interior trim rattles or squeaks when they got into the big milages, either, although like the Vectra, the seat did become more of a squidgy unsupported sofa cushion and the seat cloth became baggy as a result.....but yeah. As a round town car, they were well good enough. Headlights were great at night too. Another of the cars that just did what we wanted it to do without fanfare - the absolute definition of Unexceptional if ever there was one. Incidentally, you sat your driver's test on my wife's 25th birthday - and only three and a half months after we married! I sat mine on the 17th of December 1984 at the age of 15 years, 3 months and 20 days.....then spent the evenings of that week ferrying my father and uncle around to various 'shouts' that happened in the building trade at that time of year.,,,and then with just 10 days experience, drove my parents' 40,000 mile Austin A35 over 120 miles to our summer holiday spot - the last 20 or so miles of which were narrow, unsealed, winding gravel roads with much corrugation, many pot holes and cliffs that dropped hundreds of feet into the pacific ocean right beside me! A summer I will never forget. All the best
Cheerful little boxes, these Corsas. Their unagressive styling and their interior details always give me the feeling of coming home, despite never owning one (we had other Opels in the family though). A friend of mine had an 1.2 16V automatic for years which was old-school _very_ slow. I drove it on occasion - the rare time it was driven more or less normally since said friend is rather erratic driver - and it inspired patience. While far removed from a Peugeot 205's road manners I don't think the Corsa B handled as poorly as it was reputed to be. Eventually that auto developed a fault where the auto selector handle would get stuck and could be made to move only by removing some trim and pushing a yellow lever underneath with a *screwdriver!* I did own a (manual) Corsa C for several years which I found similarly pleasant, and that handled much better, honestly good fun to drive. Too bad there isn't anything that drives like that available anymore.
The Holden version had a cable in the engine bay that I think is absolutely absurd if you used 91 RON you plugged it into the grey female connector and if you used 95 RON the blue female due to fixed ignition timing, the ECU could not do ti itself so the driver had to, so absurdly GM. Best guess is turn of the century EU was ditching 91 so people would have to switch the ignition, but here in Australia we still got 91.
I passed my test in one as well. And it was a 1.2 merit and P reg 1996. No power steering but unlike this one had a rev counter. Incredibly slow engine. Had to go down to 3rd to get up hills at speed. My first car a polo 1.3 mark 3 with a whopping 55bhp, electric windows and power steering was a big upgrade. But the corsa was the car that got me moving. I guessed a corsa as everyone passed their test in these cars. My friend had the 1.0 3 cylinder and that was quicker than my polo. Sounded quite interesting too.
If I'm not mistaken, the 1.0 was actually more powerful than the 1.2. I have never driven a Corsa B, but I learned to drive in a couple of Corsa C, a 1.2 which felt gutless, and a 1.3 diesel. I much preferred the diesel.
We got these in New Zealand as well, they were not at all popular and as a GM/Holden dealer we regarded them as a bit of a disaster, they simply couldn't compete with the offerings from Japan (Toyota, Mazda, Nissan, Honda and to a lesser extent Suzuki) which were far better specified and had a lot more get up and go. Unfortunately they weren't a good car for NZ conditions.
Open invitation for you to come and drive our 1993 1.2 LS. 45k miles. Maybe ours really is faulty because I definitely notice the steering isn’t assisted.
A mate of mine had the top-spec Australian Holden Barina GSI…I think it was…It had the Australian built 1.8 litre Family II engine. He had nothing but dramas with it…same body shape as this one with all options and body side cladding and alloys….
Ok, to kick off the 'cars we passed out test in' here's mine: 1988 Nissan Micra 1.0L, I loved every minute of my lessons in that boxy tin can of a car 😢
Oh my, I actually guessed it! And this is pretty much the same spec and colour as my dad's P-reg 5-door one, even down to the radio-only tunes!!! And yes, those are the wrong hubcaps, if I recall they were just little black plastic jobs that fit in the wheel centre... That one ended up mostly being the stepmother's car, as my dad was usually sporting his bangernomics cars that were less than reliable sometimes, and as a young passenger in the rear, I found the seats to be rather hard, oh and the horn was as weak as the current PM, even sat right behind me once, the stepmother tooting away to get my attention at the bus stop on my way to school, it sounded like it was two streets away!! P515 YJR, dropped off the DVLA's system now (though shows up in their MOT lookup, oddly), but it was "an car", peppered with rust spots owing to being pelted by the gritters in winter, last saw it being traded in for a Hyundai Lantra (no Elantra!) estate that had a starter motor that was more a lottery some days... :P
Usually when they show up on the MOT history and nothing else they've been scrapped. Last keeper change in 2002. No MOT history so it's had no MOTs since 2006. I'd assume scrapped. Doubt it's on a private plate because the website where I checked usually shows the new plate but nothing at all. Up until a few years ago cars were often scrapped yet weren't recorded as such.
@@SuperFIFTHGEAR Oh I'm positive it's scrap, it used to be on the enquiry tool as "Untaxed" and "MOT Due" for a long time, and now it's just not there, so they probably had a data purge at DVLA HQ at somepoint, the car probably ended on a back-lot after it was traded in for the lantra cos it wasn't all that great condition-wise (needed a repaint from the rust spots everywhere from gritter damage) so probably just used, abused and binned as they were back then...
I drove a 1.4 Corsa van for a few years in the early 90s. It had a cracking engine and was night and day compared to the godawful 1.1 litre Mk3 Fiesta van I had before.I
In argentina the Corsa was sold under the chevrolet badge, as many other opel/vauxhall models (Astra, Vectra, Meriva, etc). Except for chile, because they are different( i guess)
I have noticed you have a saying for the wipers, so a triangle is a 'triangle of doom' a dribble is 'a dribble of disappointment', but sadly you haven't got a saying for a 'pillar', so may I suggest 'a pillar of pity'
I had a ‘94 diesel van (if you can call it that!) about a decade ago. Was a total lifeline at the time enabling me to start a business. £350. Ran amazingly well. 😊
In Australia it was the Holden Barina but what a totally unexceptional car with its poverty spec although it does have a full size spare tyre which is a luxury item and it is manual with its black bumpers and its 1.2 litre powerhouse under the bonnet how unexceptional
That must be very basic because my wife has a 1.4 Si that had Velour, tape deck, all electrics and a separate time and date on a pod in the dash. It went very well but I didn’t enjoy driving it to be honest.
The reveal excited about the fact it was going to be a one wheel drive shopping trolley with 3 point child seat .................... but then....... it's a Corsa , corduroy and Jesus boot fest
Hi Mr hubnut I got a blue one badged as a Holden barina from 97 lambada spec fuel is getting very steap so main reason for getting mines done nearly 300k overall two owners before me one for 7 and one 20 years only bit of rust on the boot yeah my car Lenny isn't fast but I don't win races
We all love the Corsas we grew up with! I grew up with the Corsa C. Such a soft spot for the SXI with the white dials. Thought they were so cool at the time. Someone had one at work recently. He thought it was rubbish but I thought it was still a good car! Also love the Corsa D. Again in high-spec with the red contrast stitching on the seats and the big alloys. We had one as a hire car and it was my dream first car. Miss being young and enthusiastic about everything. 😂
Drove the length & breadth of the country in an old Nova & then had a Cavalier Sri for years which I adored but then my love for Vauxhall vanished till the Insignia tourer was born, never owned one but one day.
The Fiesta was always a better car, my mum had a corsa it was reliable but dull as anything and loved breaking suspension springs bit of a vauxhall feature back then
The 5 door ones also had different rear lights and possibly a smaller rear wiper though I would have to certainly bow to the wiper oracle that is yourself for expertise in this subject.
Hey there is not too many off them Vauxhall Corsa's on the road now a days my older brother had a Vauxhall Nova it was cool looking wee car just like the Vauxhall Corsa there is not too many them on the road either.
