Rivera Notario shot this in Santiago, Chile, and posted this at the Cohort. Probably many of you wouldn’t likely recognize it if you saw one in traffic; I did a double take when I first saw it at the Cohort. It’s a Daewoo from before its time in the US, a 1995 Super Salon, also known as the Daewoo prince, and which is essentially re-skinned Opel Rekord E.
If you don’t recognize this as an Opel under the skin, you’ll certainly recognize its predecessor, the Royale.
The first version was actually initially called GMK Rekord/Royale, with that acronym standing for GM Korea. After 1973, it was changed to Saehan. It is obviously a Rekord D; well actually the Royale version was a Commodore, with its longer front end and Opel six cylinder engines. It was built from 1972-1978.
The second generation was of course based on the next generation Rekord E. As before, there was a four cylinder Rekord, and the six cylinder Royal. Until Nov. 1984, its body panels were stamped at Holden, and the assembled in Korea. After that date, Daewoo started pressing its own panels for body manufacture. There were a confusing number of variants which I won’t try to unravel here.
The key take-away is that Daewoo grew to the point of being able to design and press its own unique panels for the Prince/Super salon. Whether they’re an improvement over the Opel is questionable.
I had one. Actually the lower-rung Prince version. Super-solidly constructed body with doors that thunked shut nicely. Underpowered because of the 1.8L Opel engine.
It felt a bit like driving an S10 truck with a small 4 banger. Great on the highway, quiet and comfortable, once up to speed. Being a manual helped.
The Super-Salon/Brougham version as above had a much nicer interior. The Prince had a Rubbermaid-esque interior not unlike the oval Taurus.
Also, it didn’t handle all that great, despite the Lotus-consulted suspension tuning.
A little tail happy.
The later DOHC versions had more verve, I hear tell, but I never drove one.
Korea had, and still does to a lesser extent, a road tax system based on engine size,
climbing sharply after 2 Litres. The smaller engine made these affordable to more buyers. Really, a 3800 Buick like it’s cousin, the Commodore had, would have equalled the 4’s fuel economy due to being less overtaxed.
All in all, I was happy to have it, and it was a big step up from the Daewoo LeMans it replaced.
The VN and VP Commodore featured both four and vee six engines in NZ used in the purely Australian bodyshell the four was gutless and not very fuel efficient few survive this practice ended with the closure of local assembly
I have my own. The name of this beast is Daewoo Super Salon Brougham. It sports a GM 2.0 with 115hp. It have a very decent and cushy ride. If not marshmellow like, at least, very comfortable. Mine is a 1994 and it has 163k miles on it.
Daewoo Super Salon Brougham
Here is a side view of mine SS Brougham
The very antecessor of the Prince is that one in the picture. The Price Ace and Brougham Super Salon as well the Espero could gain an unexpected popularity in Brazil faster than many other better brands as Mistubishi or Mazda, mainly because the compatibility with pieces and parts from local GM cars were near to 90%. It´s also interesting how Holdenish they look like, The Espero looks like an evolution of the Camira, the Prince fits perfectly between the VL and VN Commodore and the Brougham Super Salon as an antecessor of the VQ Caprice.
The alloy wheels are identical to some used on Cadillac Sevilles during that timeframe.
In the early 1990’s few of these cars where sold here in Brazil. Most of them became stretched limousines, with very bad taste decoration and some have different headlights and grill to pass as other cars. Here one with VW Polo headlights to emulate a Mercedes. And most of these limos still powered by the original four cylinder and still are available for rent.
Brazilians have the worst taste in limos, the more recent ones are based on the Dodge Journey, the Chevrolet Captiva Sport and some Hyundai CUVs like the Veracruz and the Santa Fé. PT Cruiser based limos are very common too.
Ss 1994
Don’t forget the earlier Opel Kadett ‘E’, which was rebadged as a Daewoo LeMans. In the US and Canada, it was marketed as a Pontiac LeMans in the early 1990s. It was also available in Canada since 1989, badged as a ‘Passport Optima’ sold at their short-lived Passport dealer organization.