SA Roadtests
South Africa
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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
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Published in Weekend Witness Motoring on Saturday January 8, 2011
It's bright and cheerful and comes in five attention-grabbing colours ranging from pretty to gothic, with a choice of either silver or black alloy wheels. Opel SA introduced the Corsa Colour Edition in late November to replace the 1.4 litre three-door Sport, at a healthy R11 600 price cut. Well, we fudge slightly; they ditched the sunroof in the process. Sad, perhaps, but who actually uses those things anyway?
Apart from the bright outside colours, all have glossy black roofs. The colour theme, either similar or complementary, is repeated inside on the seat stitching and ventilator outlet trims. Our test unit was painted Oriental Blue, with blue seat stitching and blue vent trims, for example.
The engine pumped up a few muscles somewhere around mid-year, so it now delivers 74 kW and 130 Nm, for a useful gain in performance. Other sporty accents include a sports chassis and body-hugging sports seats, alloy pedals and white-on-black instruments. A leather-clad steering wheel, complete with sound controls, adjusts for both rake and reach. One of the sound controls is a little scrollwheel that adjusts the tuning of the radio. It's possible to bump it while steering quickly, so if the radio wanders off station for no apparent reason, you know what happened. There is a minijack "aux in" connector behind the cup holders in the centre console.
Performance-wise, it gets up to 100 km/h in about 13.6 seconds and scampers on to a top speed of 175 km/h. It's not the fastest kid on the block as naturally aspirated 1400s go, but not a total sluggard either. Just keep the revs up and there's fun to be had. Gearing of 3 800 rpm at 120 km/h in fifth is biased slightly toward economy rather than all-out performance, so it scores against most of its rivals with average usage around 6.6 l/100 km.
Safety kit includes the mandatory ABS with brake assistance, EBD and CBC. Unlike some others in its class, the Colour Edition has four air bags and there are ISOFIX anchorages on the one-piece rear seat back. The doors lock automatically as the car starts moving.
Rear seat head- and knee room is good for a small car, as is ease of entry and exit; this thanks to front seats that both tip and slide forward. I would go as far as to say that some other small-to-medium cars could learn a lesson from the three-door Corsa, in fact. Boot space is also good for a car this size; the only drawback being that the seat back doesn't fold flat when extending the cargo area. Can't have everything though, can we? The spare is a steel spacesaver.
Another nice feature not often found on European cars converted to right hand drive, is the sweep pattern of the windscreen wipers that clear all the way to the right side of the screen. It doesn't sound like much, but rain on an unwiped section of glass can make visibility dodgy and sometimes even dangerous. There's usually some moving obstacle lurking in the top right of your screen, just when you don't need one.
Bright and cheerful, but certainly not cheap, the Opel Corsa Colour Edition is a well-equipped and solid little car that deserves to appeal to a wide audience.
The numbers
Price: R180 750
Engine: 1 364 cc DOHC 16 valve naturally aspirated
Power: 74 kW at 6 000 rpm
Torque: 130 Nm at 4 000 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 13.6 seconds
Maximum speed: 175 km/h
Fuel Index: 6.6 l/100 km
Tank: 45 litres
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km
Service plan: 3 years/60 000 km
To read about this car's 2013 replacement click here
This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.
What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.
I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!
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SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8