Thanks to our faithful Cohort poster RiveraNotario, we are honored to have the first-ever appearance of the Saehan Bird on our pages. He was able to track it down in Rancagua, Chile. If it looks a bit familiar, that’s for a good reason: this is a Korean-built Isuzu Gemini, sold as the Opel by Isuzu in the US and which was a Japanese version of the Opel Kadett C, also related to our Chevette. GM’s T-Car was its first global platform, and it did get around, including to Korea.
That’s where it was built first by Saehan as the Bird, and after 1982, as the Daewoo Maepsy.
The Bird featured a 1.5 L four, imported (from Isuzu, undoubtedly), and was even available with an automatic. That all made it quite expensive at a time when South Korea was just beginning its long climb upwards. So sales were low, and when it reappeared as the Daewoo Maepsy, it had a smaller 1.3 L engine and a somewhat lower price.
Obviously some of these Birds flew the coop, and to some faraway places, like Southern Chile.
I can visualise Daniel Stern scooping in to comment about the clever (or not-so-clever) workaround replacements for the gored headlamp and busted taillamp on this particular car.
Neither would be overlooked by the TÜV during the inspection process. Last year, David Tracy (former Jalopnik writer) chronicled his angst-ridden experience with his diesel Chrysler Voyager during its first long-awaited inspection in Germany.
I’m willing to ship some samples of Brazilian Chevette´s taillamps, which were much larger and are sure to cover everything….
I’m suprised that they were exported to Chile, plenty of Kadett based cars were built all over South America. Someone in my street has a bronze Kadett C since last week it seems and I have a pair of USDM Chevrolet Chevettes myself.
RiveraNotario’s posted a great many Brazilian Chevy Chevettes, and quite a number of them in Chile were the mainly-for-export 4-door sedan which makes this an especially impressive spot.
That 4 door Chevette was even assembled in Chile from Brazilian parts 🙂 Yet with open markets and competition, why not importing Korean cars too?
I owned one of these! Being a car geek stationed in Korea for 3 non-consecutive duty tours, I got to watch the Korean auto industry develop.
In the Korean domestic market, the car was introduced as the Saehan Maepsy. Maepsy means pretty in Korean. As the word does not translate well, export models were renamed Bird. Saehan had been taken over by Daewoo a few years earlier, but kept using the Saehan name for several years after the take over.
Initial Saehans used Japanese-built engines, but the Maepsy was one of the first with a Korean-built engine. The engine started life as a Kia built Mazda design. Most ran on LPG as the primary market was taxi companies.
During this time, Korea was a dictatorship. The government was heavily involved in promoting industrial development and rationalizing industry. Kia was instructed to exit the car business and focus on their Kiamaster truck line. Since they no longer had any use for their car engine, the tooling was sold to Saehan.
Badged initially as a Saehan and later as a Daewoo, the Maepsy was never popular as it was rather expensive when new. When Hyundai introduced the Pony, it largely took over the taxi market which was by far the volume market leader in Korea during the Maepsy’s era.
Saehan itself has an interesting history in that it came and went from the GM orbit. The company started life when Korea was still under Japanese rule as the National Motor Company. In the 60s, the company was reorganized as Saenara and started building car parts. They graduated to rebuilding old US military vehicles followed by assembly of Nissan Bluebirds from Japanese kits.
The Korean government eventually banned import of kits in an effort to promote development of local Korean manufacturing. Saenara collapsed shortly after the ban and was taken over by Shinjin Industrial. Initially Shinjin continued production of the Nissan Bluebird, but got around the government ban on kit assembly through some astute political donations and the substitution of the Japanese engine with a US Jeep engine remanufactured in Korea from scrap US military vehicles.
The company later entered into a JV with Toyota which aided Shinjin in further developing their auto factory in Bupyeong, a district in Incheon which is today has become part of the greater Seoul metro area. As a JV with Toyota, production of Nissan designs ended and switched to Toyota designs.
All good things must end. Eventually, Toyota decided to pull out of the JV to avoid political complications in their efforts to expand into the China market.
GM stepped in and bought Toyota’s shares in the Shinjin JV. As the GM tie up had positive connotations in Korea of the early 70s, the JV was renamed GMK (GM-Korea). During this period, the company began switching to GM designed platforms.
Shinjin themselves ran into financial troubles and their share of the JV was taken over by a Korean bank. The bank part of the JV used the Saehan name as they couldn’t continue using the Shinjin name.
GM later pulled out of the JV during a Korean economic crisis and the company adopted the Saehan name for the entire operation. Eventually, the bank sold Saehan to Daewoo who continued the car operation as the sole partner. As Daewoo, the company even tried exporting to the US.
Eventually Daewoo ran into financial troubles. They were the 2nd largest chaebol (basically a Korean conglomerate) in Korea at the time. The Daewoo chaebol was broken into pieces and taken over by different companies. The car operation and Bupyeong factory was once again taken over by GM.
GM eventually discontinued the Daewoo name and started selling the Bupyeong products under their various international car brands. With GM shedding international brands, today the cars are primarily sold as Chevrolets.
Probably more than you ever wanted to know about the Saehan/Daewoo brand. If I hadn’t owned one myself, I’d never have bothered to learn the history. BTW, my Maepsy was one of the few cars that made the Dodge Aspen that replaced it look reliable.
Thanks! That’s the most comprehensive history of this car ever, and one of the most detailed comments ever.
Wow! Where else on the net would you find a brief history of Saehan!
There’s no day that an orange car doesn’t make better.
I always love it when I come to this site and learn about a car I’d never heard of before.
Now I have heard about the Bird.
Hah, love it!
Are those bumpers used on any other T-car? They look deeper than the Isuzu/Holdens I’m used to seeing, but those inset front lights don’t look US-compliant.
Another cool orphan .
-Nate
I also like that the owner of this Bird took care to fine a replacement taillamp that at least tried to approximate what it was supposed to look like.
It’s great to see pictures of one of these, and to read Rob’s comment above.
I wonder just where the Bird was exported? Internet information on this topic is scarce, but there are pictures of a Greek-market Saehan Bird brochure, so there was at least an attempt at European exports. I have no idea where else.
One of the little details on this car I can’t quite figure out is what exactly the badge design is. Looks like a crown with three pillars – but I’m not sure:
Saehan Saehan gives us the Bird, a Maewoo Dropsy with slightly different feathers. When Bird travels to other countries, he often goes under the alias of “Chevette”, telling people he’s from the Opel, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Holden, Vauxhall, or Isuzu (excuse you, too!) family… though he once masqueraded as a GMC at a party in Argentina.
That substituted tail lamp looks to be for an N20 Toyota Hilux (mid-1972 to 1978), non-US market. The equivalent tail lamp used in the USA didn’t have the round reflector as part of the tail/brake lens area… US trucks had separate reflectors affixed to the tailgate; round in some years, and the reflector/lens section of a rear side marker (sans rear housing and bulb) in others. I’ll guess that that tail lamp assembly’s optics probably aren’t copacetic when installed horizontally… though I’ve occasionally seen them mounted this way on some Toyota chassis’d motorhomes of the era. The regular Hilux always wore them vertically with the reverse lamps at the bottom.
And thanks for sharing this… I’ve learned a couple new things today!
Maepsy sounds like a disease. Interesting find. Is that an Opel badge on the back?