Having been unceremoniously dumped from Australia a while back, GM-Daewoo cars have made a quiet though not unheralded comeback wearing the local GM arm Holden’s badges and reviving an old UK GM arm Vauxhall nameplate – Viva.
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Few Australians will remember the Viva name. It was introduced in 1963 on a small, four-cylinder entry level Vauxhall line which, on its first redesign, became the locally manufactured Holden Torana – which initially was little more than an HB Viva with round instead of rectangular headlamps and, inexplicably, given the local climate, no dashboard air vents.
Vauxhall UK used the name around the world until the late 1970s and it has since been used on Opel Corsa models sold in Japan because Toyota used to use the Corsa name there.
The revived Viva Holden is importing from South Korea is a model more familiar in other markets as the Daewoo or Chevrolet Lacetti or Nubira and is giving the GM arm Down Under a range of entry-level sedan, hatch and wagon variants priced from under $A20,000.
Standard features include an 89kW 1.8 litre DOHC petrol engine, driver, front passenger and front side impact airbags, air conditioning, power steering, front power windows, a CD/MP3 player, remote central locking and a three-year/100,00km warranty.
Graeme Roberts
Daewoo to return under new nameplate
