Daewoo finally entered the lucrative US market in 1999 and, just as it did, its perilous financial situation caught up with it. Just a year later, the Korean automaker declared bankruptcy and its future was up in the air. Daewoo Motor America was in crisis, sales off targets and prices being slashed. Nevertheless, it had more product planned and one was this, the Tacuma MPV.
While its styling was rather oddball, the Tacuma, was an utterly conventional compact MPV in the European vein. Like a Renault Scenic or an Opel Zafira, it was a spacious, high-roofed, five-seater MPV based on a passenger car platform – in this case, the Nubira’s. There was just one small problem: Americans didn’t buy European-style compact MPVs.
The template: Renault Scenic
Not that many automakers ever bothered to try and see if Americans were receptive. The conceptually similar Nissan Stanza Wagon and Mitsubishi Expo of the past were niche players at best; the Nissan’s replacement, the Axxess, lasted just one model year in the US. Since the Renault Scenic’s meteoric rise in Europe in 1996, however, only two automakers have attempted to sell a Scenic-style MPV in the US: Mazda with the Mazda5 and Kia with the Rondo. Both sold poorly despite having a duopoly on the segment.
One could argue the Chrysler PT Cruiser and Chevrolet HHR were also compact MPVs based on their dimensions and interior flexibility but both cars were far removed from the European Scenic in style.
Nevertheless, Daewoo thought they had a shot with the Tacuma. In March 2000, Autonews reported the company was doing market tests for the “U100 crossover minivan sport-utility”, a rather convoluted way to describe what was launched in Korea that year as the Rezzo. It was to arrive for the 2003 model year, priced from $16,000. Other news outlets erroneously referred to the U100 as a car-based sport-utility vehicle but, then again, a car like this defied categorization in the American market.
Even as dark clouds enveloped Daewoo’s fledgling U.S. operations, the company persisted with their plans to launch the Tacuma. Actually, it wasn’t going to be called Tacuma – AdAge reported in April 2001 that Daewoo had enlisted an L.A.-based advertising firm in to run a sweepstakes competition to name Daewoo’s new product. 12 months later, however, Daewoo Motor America had more or less collapsed and GM was swooping in to pick up the wreckage of its parent company. There’d be no US-market Tacuma and the planned Lanos, Nubira and Leganza replacements would all be sold under the Chevrolet and Suzuki brands.
Was this a great loss? Well, the additional variety a car like this would’ve given to American consumers would have been refreshing, even if its inscrutable (to Americans) format and curious Pininfarina styling would have seen it fail. The tall-boy styling – shorter in length than the Nubira but taller in height – resulted in a capacious cabin, even if it did seat only five. The interior design was styled by ItalDesign in conjunction with Daewoo’s own designers.
Depending on the market, the Tacuma was available with either 1.6, 1.8 or 2.0 versions of GM’s Family II four-cylinder engine. The US model would have come only with the largest of these engines, producing 119 hp and 130 ft-lbs and hitting 60mph in 11 seconds; it came with either a five-speed manual or four-speed automatic. Per Australian and British driving impressions, the Tacuma handled tidily and felt rather solid. This surprises me given the related Nubira’s rather sloppy handling and creaky feel although Porsche allegedly had a hand in tuning the Tacuma. Critics did, however, note the Tacuma’s relatively poor bump absorption, fiddly switchgear and the use of small poor-quality plastics. That sounds more like the Daewoo I know.
This class of MPVs were almost all well-packaged and full of clever storage spots and the Tacuma was no exception. The front passenger seat could swivel to face the rear row and the second row could be removed completely. Both front seats had storage drawers underneath and flip-down trays on the seat backs. The rear middle seat could also fold flat to create a tabletop or slide forward 5 inches to increase shoulder room for the outboard occupants. There were some puzzling omissions in the cabin, however, such as the lack of side airbags and a lap-only center rear seatbelt.
GM North America could have chosen to bring the Tacuma over under a different brand such as Chevrolet. After the Daewoo nameplate was retired in Europe in 2005, the Tacuma was sold there as a Chevy. But Americans clearly had about as much an appetite for small MPVs as Australians did, the Tacuma selling poorly here and not being resurrected as a Holden after Daewoo’s closure. Remarkably, the Tacuma continued to be sold until 2009 in Europe and Korea, receiving virtually no changes along the way. Almost a decade later, the little MPV was looking very tired.
There’s precious little to ponder here. Would the Tacuma have sold poorly in the US? Almost definitely, even if its parent company hadn’t been circling the drain. Still, it was a relatively competent and well-packaged compact MPV. GM Korea’s replacement took the Tacuma’s key attributes and improved all of the rest. It was also intended for release in the US only for plans to fall through. But that’s a story for another day.
Related Reading:
CC Capsule Review: 2000 Daewoo Leganza – Will’s First Car
Curbside Capsule: Daewoo Nubira – A Family COAL
COAL: 2006 Pontiac Wave (Chevy Aveo/Daewoo Kalos) – The Worst New Car Of A Lifetime
Guy, it’s awful! I seems the design team took a Scenic and started to put different pieces from other Korean cars into that! When GM stopped to use Opel cars as its base for non-American GM’s it was a shock because Opel always had an uniform style for its range of cars, since the Kalos, Tosca and Tacuma it seems GM started to shot erratically in every directions.
“Not that many automakers ever bothered to try and see if Americans were receptive.”
In some ways, I can see that argument. But in other ways I see this Daewoo as very similar in form factor to the 1G Scion xB and Kia Soul. Although they weren’t marketed as MPVs, they were all 5-seaters with copious cargo space. The Soul still is, while the Scion faltered in its second generation and ultimately died.
While technically you are correct, the Scion xB and Kia Soul were both sold based on funkyness, not utility, which is the calling card of a MPV. The JDM-ness of the xB, along with the Nissan Cube, were what was played up, but the target buyers could not afford a new car and the olds were the ones who bought them. It’s hard to be hip when your Grandma drives the same car you want, so they lost their cool factor with the kids. Seems the olds liked them for the MPV utility, after all. The fact that they were youth-oriented also appealed to the geriatric buyers.
It seems that the car companies often miss their target in marketing, but some otherwise failures end up working out for them in the end.
Don’t forget the Kia Rondo!
Looks like I did, whups!
I often forget it was sold here, as well as its Carens predecessor.
And so did most of Australia.
And for those who couldn’t, it wasn’t for a lack of trying.
More like “The Daewoo America Luckily Missed!”
GM always had a huge stake in Daewoo if not actual ownership, Daewoo was stamping out a Holden Torana station wagon in the late 60s early 70s badged as a Chevrolet, its just nobody ever saw them and put 2+2 together.
My ’94 Daewoo Super Salon Brougham.
A young woman I know bought a Daewoo sedan. Just 8 months later, Daewoo collapses and she’s stuck with an underwater loan because the value of the car had collapsed. The dealer was kind enough to help with some warranty issues on a hit or miss basis, but this only lasted 3 to 4 months. Past that point, she was on her own.
I’m also old enough to remember when Daihatsu collapsed and the same scenario happened to a woman in our condo complex. She was stuck with rapidly deprecating orphan car. Ouch!!!
May be its best that the Tacuma did miss the US.
Yes it happens people in NZ paid large sums for Rovers which by the time the company evaporated were quite a good car but with no parts back up values plummeted, and they were either stuck with them or bailed out at huge losses.
There WAS a VERY successful compact MPV sold in America. It was even built in the Western Hemisphere and even for a couple of years in Europe, it was such a hot seller.
The Chrysler PT Cruiser! Its designers actually took the ideas in the Renault and Opel entrants and built upon them.
Sometimes the PT Cruiser’s style overshadows the kind of vehicle it really is.
I was reluctant to consider the PT Cruiser as a Scenic-style MPV. A quick look at its dimensions, however, show it’s actually taller than the Tacuma — it hides it well! And of course it had plenty of neat storage niches like the Scenic and other Euro MPVs had.
Stylistically, it’s far removed from the sometimes dorky Euro MPVs that generally just look like high-roofed versions of regular Meganes/Astras/Golfs etc. And I dare say it would have sold just as well even if it didn’t have half their interior flexibility and oddment storage purely based on its looks, but it’s worth flagging so I’ve amended the text.
Daewoo was serious about bringing these to the US; I can’t remember exactly what year but they had one at the Minneapolis auto show in 2001 or 2002. No lie people were swarming over the thing, with mostly positive feedback that I heard. I chaulk that up to the fact no price was on the car, and I’d wager people thought it would be a $13,000 proposition relative to a Nubira at the time.
I wondered what all the fuss was with the Scenic when it took over Europe, until much later when I owned one. You have to live with one of these small MPV’s, whether it be a PT or a Scion Xb or even this Daewoo, to understand the endless usefulness of them. It had about as much useable passenger room as a big Commodore, a boot so deep it was about the same, but great visibility and manouvreability necessarily lacking in a bigger, longer and lower car. It also got 25 mpg in town, vs 16 for the Commode. It was lighter enough that the performance was acceptable. The seats could very easily be folded or thrown out and you had a sizeable van: a fridge and couch, why, ofcourse!
In short, for the vast majority of what folk were doing in their large saloons, these could do it better, often much so. Especially a French one, with French seats and ride and handling.*
They are a type of car which logically SHOULD have universal appeal, including a cheap Tacuma in the US, or in Oz come to that. But that is rarely how car buying has ever worked. They are pretty much impossible to make look stylish, for most tastes – I personally liked my Scenic – and there endeth their story for conservative markets like Ausmerica.
*And French reliability. Australians did not buy them, and based on my experience of it, they were right. Great, but also awful.
Man that’s FUGLY. The Renault, looking very similar, is somehow much better looking.
I do wonder why other vehicles (looking at you Dodge Caravan) after many years of production, haven’t incorporated swivel front seats or fold down tables?
It almost looks like Pininfarina sold the same design to two car companies! It’s really striking how similar they are. This thing is more egg shaped than the Ford Aspire, which is really saying something…
I kind of dig this oddball, I wonder if it had been released in the USDM that it would have made any advances on the then King of the Hill PT Cruiser or later the bB and Cube. I suspect if they could have kept the price low enough to undercut any of those models, they could have swept up a bunch of customers.
But, we in the States have a very narrow idea of what is fashionable and we stick to our orthodoxy pretty closely. Witness the current hegemony of SUV uber alles…
FWIW, Chrysler, when it re-designed the T&C and Grand Caravan for 2008, did have an optional stowable table for the the T&C and swivel chairs (Stow & Go, no less!) for the second row, not the passenger seat. I have a suspicion it had something to do with crash testing and liability…
Wow, a new one for me, I’ve never been aware of this. And no, if would not have been a success in the States. For all of Daewoo’s issues, I surprisingly still see several driving around every year, somehow they manage to hang on against all odds. They must be tough little beasts.