Ask the average person on the street what a Daewoo is and the answer will be a blank stare and the response “Day Who?” Yet it was not that long ago that the brand tried to gain a foothold in our market until GM took them over and ushered them behind the barn, only to eventually re-emerge with not exactly a swan but various small cars badged as Chevrolets.
Today we’ve found a member of the third (!) year that the Daewoo Leganza was offered in the United States, more astonishingly there was even a fourth year! I sort of put them out of my mind after their first or second year and didn’t consider that they were here for longer than that, mainly due to their inane original plan to sell them via college students home on summer break, door to door as if they were Tupperware or something. Of course there were three models, starting with the little Lanos, then the midsize Nubira, and then this one, the top of the line Leganza.
The name Leganza is a combination of “elegant” and “forza” (meaning power), I’m not sure if it was really either of those, but the styling was benign enough not to offend, and from some quarters drew comparisons to the Lexus GS300. While a Giugiaro design, I don’t think it’ll be found on the front pages of his portfolio.
Still, this 2001 example is a top flight CDX trim level, meaning it came with all the toys that were offered – leather, sunroof, ABS, traction control, alloy wheels etc. Now these pictured above are not the alloys it came with from the dealer, these OZ F1’s were a fairly pricey aftermarket item. Shod as they are with Bridgestone Blizzak tires this owner apparently spent some money on his ride at some point during his ownership period. Of course, we’ve had triple digit temps for over a month now and no snow in about four months so perhaps times have gotten a little tougher lately, nothing wears winter tires out faster than hot temperatures and dry roads.
The front grille is not nearly as bland as it could be, and does have an interesting design with slats going in both directions; if nothing else it does make a Daewoo of these years instantly recognizable, even to those that find most modern conveyances to all look the same. If the grille was missing it would look like a Mazda, Nissan, or whatever.
The forza, uh, power, was provided by a thoroughly modern 2.2 liter 16v GM four cylinder produced by Holden. Producing 131hp and 148lb-ft of torque and routing it through a Japanese Aisin 4-speed automatic transmission, it’s certainly competitive for the time.
The interior is fairly gray, but still, leather, airbags, lots of buttons – not bad for the $19,199 sticker price this Galaxy White over Gray example tried to command. Without a doubt there was much money to be saved relative to that with little dickering. Of course, you scoff, this thing will surely self-destruct quickly. Not so fast!
Just a tick under 176,000 miles is a very good showing for something I wouldn’t have thought to be particularly durable. Perhaps even more if the odometer is broken? No, unlikely, that stuff doesn’t break in Asian vehicles. I’m actually starting to warm up to this little sugarcube! At my age I’m somehow starting to quickly shed some of my former pretenses and am really appreciating value.
The back bench looks thickly padded, the door pulls are chrome, and there are even pockets in both seatbacks. While probably fairly plasticky, the leather is still holding up just fine for an 18-year old car.
This ad from the Leganza’s introduction is perhaps piling it on a little thick for a brand with basically zero name recognition but at least they learned from another marque and actually showed the car instead of just trees and rocks…they play up the international heritage with the Italian design etc. and in other advertising of the day claim that Porsche designed the chassis, and apparently Lotus, get this, “inspired” the suspension, whatever that means.
There’s a little junk in the trunk but that’s fairly sizable too with a folding rear seat for more space.
If Daewoo had more time, I wonder if they would be rivaling Hyundai and Kia these days. After all, the Chevy Cruze, Sonic, and Spark are basically Daewoos under the skin and considered basically decent vehicles, it could easily be argued that the problem with them, ironically, is the Chevy badge. And Hyundai/Kia are fully competitive vehicles as well.
While Daewoo itself didn’t stick around, besides the above later Chevrolets, there was a middle act wherein they supplied Suzuki with much of their range over here for a while. For example the successor generation to this Leganza was available here as the Suzuki Verona, which I remember seeing at the Detroit Auto Show and not being turned off at all. I’m still looking for one in the junkyard, so…
Leganzas (all Daewoos) are basically worthless, any minor fault could be the reason it’s here now. All things considered, it probably went almost a decade further than I would have figured back when it was new. The body is solid, the interior isn’t falling apart and the powertrain managed a very respectable result. I’m actually impressed.
Related Reading:
Paul N’s review of his son Will’s Leganza!
Will’s own review of his own Leganza
Should have just had a conveyor line that went straight from the showroom directly to the wrecking yard.
Your comment might be vaguely relevant to Daewoo’s two cheaper cars, but the Leganza was actually a quite well-built car, and acquitted itself quite well. They bought proven engines from GM and the automatic is a solid Aisin unit, and the rest was all pretty good too. There’s still a couple on the streets here, proving you wrong.
Blizzaks have a softer outer tread for snow/ice, inner compound is harder for summer driving, they likely wanted everyone to buy new tires every autumn.
Taking Daewoo out behind the barn was better than publicly executing Saab.
By coincidence I’ve had several Daewoo encounters in the last year:
My in laws in Fort Wayne have some doctor(?) neighbors on their subdivision street who don’t spend much time at their house and have TWO immaculate low mileage Daewoos: A Nubira and Leganza. Presumably bought as a pair at a good price back in the day.
A more up-close experience: I shadowed my brother on one of his trips out to Staten Island to do some mobile diagnostics work, a shop had an ’01 Nubira with a CEL and some idling issues, turned out to be a cam sensor that had already been replaced once. Low mileage car, it was interesting to poke around. It was “almost there,” the design and layout was basically in line with Japanese/Korean cars of that era, but the material quality wasn’t quite there. Paint fading at different rates, trim fading inside and out, chrome peeling off the plastic interior door pulls.
Were these ever sold as Suzukis…or in Canada as the Chevy Epica?
I remember when one of the major Pittsburgh dealer chains took on Daewoo and launched a radio campaign trying to build awareness by tying the brand to popular songs like…
(from “Oklahoma”) Oh what a beautiful day…woo. Oh what a beautiful day…woo.
The announcer, thankfully, only read the lyric rather than attempt to sing.
Few car lines were more generic or forgettable than Daewoo, and it’s easily argued that their best days were as the basis for Chevy Sonics that are an absolute blast to drive, and Cruzes that – at least in the first generation – changed a lot of minds about Chevy small cars.
Yep, Canada got a few Daewoolets that were marketed as Suzukis in the US. The Chevrolet Epica was identical to the Suzuki Verona, the Suzuki Forenza became the Chevrolet Optra, and the Suzuki Reno became the Chevrolet Optra5. Suzuki did get a badge-engineered Chevrolet Aveo from Daewoo, though, badged as the Swift+.
Even now when I see Laganza I still think Lasagna…
And Nubira always made me think of a combination of nubile and beer.
Both sound good to me. Lasagna, beer, and nubility? I’m in.
And the Lanos sounded like a planet that Kirk, Spock and Ensign Red Shirt landed on to investigate some suspicious anomaly.
“Stardate 73124.4 (today’s actual stardate) We are beaming down to Lanos VI to investigate…”
http://trekguide.com/Stardates.htm#Today
Nubira, sounds like a body part that you’re not supposed to mention in polite company.
After Daewoo pulled out of the U.S., one of the magazines had an article about changes to the new cars for the coming year. Concerning Daewoo they wrote, “Daewoo? Dae came. Dae gone.”
Probably C&D said that.
Dagwood – ***Lasagna***
Very nice find Jim, I really enjoy these junkyard classics lately!
It is certainly interesting the stories that even the most humble of transportation might evoke upon a closer look.
While definetely not a super memorable design, something clicked in my head when you said this is Giugaro’s doing. I dug deep into my visual memory and – ha! The taillight design and even more so the c -pillar is very clearly recycled from Giugaro’s Jaguar Kensington – a study of an XJ successor from 1990 which was too modern a cat for its time. Compare the pictures here: https://www.google.com/search?q=jaguar+kensington&client=firefox-b-e&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidyZmCmajkAhWMGewKHThoDfMQ_AUIESgB&biw=1525&bih=730
Full credit to the owner (and car) for going the distance. It looks great, though much of the mileage could have been early in its life, before rust and ruggedness became issues.
Only twice do I recall seeing a car being driven on a road with one of their rear drum brakes seized, and the stationary tire dragging along the pavement. A Dodge Neon and a Daewoo Lanos.
The ‘CDX’ trim line is new to me. Reminds me of the Dodge Mirada ‘CMX’.
So Daewoo took “CD” and “CDX” from Opel/Vauxhall. Other than taking the whole Opel Kadett for their 1.5i/Racer/LeMans/etc, they were often “inspired” by Opel. For example, the facelifted Nubira had these little grey plastic… bits… under its taillights that were reminiscent of an Opel Vectra’s taillights.
William, you are a walking automotive Wikipedia. Thank you! The Vectra was a nicely executed design to pull from.
That is high praise from somebody else on Curbside Classic. Thank you, sir!
I do love that generation of Vectra. I think it’s aged better than the Mondeo, although the New Edge-ish MCE made the Ford more memorable.
I remember seeing these around occasionally, there must have been a fairly active dealer in my area.
And to answer your question about whether these would now be up with Kia and Hyundai – negatory, sir. Kia and Hyundai’s products of the last decade have not been infected with the GM virus. Those vehicles have gotten steadily better with each generation. Had Daiwoo been large enough to be independent, the answer might have been different. But with a few exceptions (like the modern Impala), the General’s efforts have been more second than first tier when it comes to reliability and durability, particularly in smaller cars.
I meant if they had remained independent, not absorbed into GM. I suppose if they were too small to survive on their own in the first place, that answers the question too…
I remember when the Daewoo’s first came out and that they were originally going to be sold by college kids. I was a college kid, and I thought that plan was ridiculous.
My most memorable encounters with a Daewoo Leganza was on a road trip from Las Cruces, NM to San Diego. We were moving along I-10 in southern AZ, at a pretty good clip of 75mph. Seemingly out of nowhere, a gold Leganza screams past us. That thing had to have been doing 100+, all the gerbils under the hood were maxed out. My boyfriend (now husband) didn’t recognize the car, so I gave him an earful of information regurgitated from the car mags.
Not 15 minutes later, we came upon an AZ State Trooper with a car pulled over. It was the same gold Leganza! As we joked about it, I imitated what I thought the cop would have said in my best Beuford T. Justice accent “What the hell kinda car is a DAY-WOO anyway?” To this day, almost every time we see a Daewoo (which is getting less and less often), one of us will repeat that line.
30 minutes later, the same gold Leganza went screaming past us again. Never saw him again.
Nowdays he’d be running the Waze app and maybe a Valentine detector
Daewoo the car manufacturer was sold to GM in 2001, after the parent Daewoo company, the second largest in Korea after Hyundai, went bankrupt in 1999 and it’s CEO fled the country. In some markets its corporate name was actually changed by GM to “Chevrolet.”
Shades of John Delorian and Carlos Ghosn!
My Buick Encore is a direct descendant, being a restyled Chevy Trax.
I think these came in a wagon version. As a wagon nut, I took a look, but it seemed bland. Later on, maybe 2010, I had the twin, the Suzuki Verona, as a rental. Possibly the most bland car I’ve ever driven, but competent enough for a 4-day rental.
The Nubira was available in the wagon. It was kind of the Hyundai Elantra equivalent, where the Leganza was the Sonata in the lineup but with much more “luxury” and the Lanos the Accent equiv.
This is the kind of car that Dollar General, or Family Dollar stores would sell. They would be located at the back of the store, next to the Bloopers men’s white briefs and the dried dog food sacks that look like they are made by Purina, but on closer inspection you discover that the brand of dog food is “Purino”.
The parts for the car would be in the car washing supplies, between the gallons of blue windshield solvent and the scented cardboard pine trees. You would have been able to buy a beaded massage covers for each of the seats, along with the “Daewoo” logo’ed floor mats.
The toothless clerk would sell you the car, along with the disposable razor blades, dollar pack of peanut butter sandwich crackers and the ten dollar purple recharging phone cord.
Then you’d drive around the block and hope no one saw you in it.
There was a guy who had a white Lanos in the San Jose area who replaced all the emblems with Lexus items. It got a lot of double takes. Once when I was cruising the new car dealers I stopped by the Daewoo dealer. After I was done looking at the cars, the salesman asked me what I thought. I told him that were okay cars, but they had to do something about those names! They had to be killing them in the market.
Daewoo’s car names might not have been the greatest, but the name of Suzuki’s final new car in the US, the Kizashi, certainly didn’t help matters, either.
You can tell the difference between the luxury versions of these cars and the strippers by the fact that the luxury Daewoos arrived at the showrooms already smelling like old cigarettes and filled ashtrays. The strippers just had that “glued-mouse-fur” chemical fragrance.
These cars just cried out for some heavy vaping in them.
IIRC, Daewoo was primarily a discount electronics brand in the US before the cars arrived from the overseas corporate motherhive. I’d have a hard time plunking big money down on an automobile with the same logo as my portable CD player.
These came and went from the streets awfully quickly.
I remember driving behind one here in Chicago and thinking, how can a car be a success when its emblem looks like a jockstrap?
My thoughts exactly.
I was never quite clear what they were going for there because all I see is underwear too. I guess a shell?
I actually remember when these came out, as my mother of all people, asked me about it. It was something along the lines of “have you heard of that new Korean luxury car? It’s called a Daewoo.”.
It rhymes with BMW… 🙂
What a weird alternate reality to consider: Brendan’s life after growing up with a Daewoo. My guess is that alternate Brendan became a great success selling stolen Escalades in Dorchester? 🙂
They quite naturally got Holden badges here since they had Holden engines and were built on cast off GM platforms, Daewoo were building Chevys way back in the 70s using parts from the global parts bin and panels common to Australian Holden Toranas, which was only a thinnly disguised Vauxhall that began at Opel, yeah this hjas been going on for decades and has only really been obvious since the interweb evolved unless you lived in a strange little market on the edge of the planet.
Strange little market on the edge of the planet – like our countries, no?
I don’t think this generation of mid-size Daewoo ever wore Holden badges. Its replacement’s replacement, however, the Tosca/Epica did wear Holden badges (and Chevrolet in other markets such as Europe).
CC effect alive and well: saw a burgundy Leganza for sale beside the road on Monday this week. Was thinking I hadn’t seen one in a while and here we are, twice in one week…!
I was always curious about these. The reviews here weren’t awful and it was a bit surprising to see the biggest, most expensive Daewoo be received better by critics than the cheaper ones. This mid-size segment may have been struggling at the time but there was still plenty of competition.
If the Leganza was anything like my parents’ Nubira, however, then that’s a hard pass from me. That thing had a creaky, cheapo, ugly interior, terrible seats, lots of body roll but an unrefined ride. I couldn’t think of one thing I liked about that car other than the exterior styling, which was a passable.
That’s one thing this generation of Daewoos got right — the company outsourced the styling and the designers penned bodies that were for the most part pretty attractive and distinctive. Even the chromey grilles stood out, and not necessarily in a bad way. The Lanos hatch was a lovely shape and the Nubira sedan and wagon was handsome. (The Lanos sedan was a bit dinky but most B-segment sedans are; the Nubira hatch looked like a truncated sedan and was a bit awkward but it disappeared pretty quickly)
See my earlier comment. Unlike the two cheaper Deawoos, the Leganza was a quite well-built car. I was pleasantly surprised at my son’s Leganza. And there are several still n town on the road. They have a decidedly better rep than the Nubira and Lanos. Consider it the Lexus of Daewoos. 🙂
I have to agree with Paul here. Many years ago, a student drove me in her Leganza and I was quite impressed with it. It looked and felt like a luxury car. It was comfortable and very well equipped. Also at the time, this was the only Leganza (or Daewoo) in the area so it was quite exotic as well.
…If the grille was missing it would look like a Mazda, Nissan or whatever?
With the grille in place they always reminded me of an early Studebaker Champion.
Or the 47 Kaiser.
I always liked the name of the Daewoo Maepsy. Sounds like a contagious disease of some sort.
Maepsy = small loved one, as in – a child
Maepsy sounds like a music title made by Bob Marley.
I like the Nubira name. Other than that, the brand was forever tarnished, for me, by its association with the Korean-built LeMans. But now I’m curious when the Leganza is described as having a Holden engine. Australian-built? Or just the same GM four cylinder design as some Holdens, built in Korea?
Australian-built, but the usual GM Family 2 engine. Think Holden relied on export sales of the engine to make production viable.
From the movie Taxie.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=%23&ved=2ahUKEwjNysP3oankAhVMMqwKHYU8DsAQwqsBMAB6BAgEEAU&usg=AOvVaw0VTJzWxrN8ZFOD4xbU2nov
The styling isn’t that bad. Looks slightly like a cross between a concurrent Grand Prix and LeSabre. The letdown for me, is that unusual grille design, and headlight shape. They both cheapen the overall design IMO.
These things remind me of my high school era. I remember talking about them to one of my true car-aware friends. I graduated in 2003 and I remember a couple of kids ending up with Daewoos as first cars. They were always the kind of car that looked like it was 15 years old when it was 3 years old.
Does anyone else remember the “It’s a whole new Dae” commercials?
Those are O.Z. wheels but I doubt the owner spent much money on them. They look to have come off a Mitsubishi Lancer O.Z. Rally edition. Probably were a junkyard find of some sort.
This is my 1994 Daewoo Brougham. Daewoos are not that bad at all.
Actually the Leganza is the only one good job Giugiaro did to Daewoo, the rest were awfully bland and cheap if compared to Espero, Prince Ace and Brougham Super Salon. It’s only forgivable because the Hyundai and Kia of the same age were aesthetically even worse.
Daewoo bounce!
Interesting find – I didn’t realise these made it to the US.
Looks come from the Jaguar Kensington, surely?
Yes that was the inspiration, apparently. Paul mentioned it in one of the posts I linked to with pix etc.