Photos from the CC Cohort by Mike Hayes.
I didn’t dare to use the word “unicorn” on this post’s title, even if I’m pretty sure that’s what this Nubira is nowadays. True, not many of these Daewoos have survived to this day, but “unicorn” is such a mythical-sounding name. As in something worth hunting for and looking forward in expectations –qualities I’m not entirely convinced an old Daewoo embodies.
But the brief period the maker aimed high, aspiring to be the next hot thing in the US market? That I’m pretty sure qualifies as an automotive footnote. And here we have a perfect sample of the era, surviving to this day with few blemishes and posing in a setting that’s oh-so postcard-like.
Footnote? Absolutely. Any car that needs lots of introduction to non-car –or even casually inclined– car people probably qualifies as such.
“Oh, gosh! That’s a Daewoo!”
“Dae…who? What you talkin’ ’bout Dad?”
“Mmmm… do you want to hear a story, son?”
Daewoo’s brief US foray has been told elsewhere at CC, a scant few years when the maker reached America’s shores with lofty goals. Yet, when these Daewoos arrived in 1998 on US soil their fate was no different from those of many foreign outfits; reaching America hoping to make it big from day one, realizing in short order that dreaming is easy but that reality has a way to get in the way.
At launch, the company offered 3 model ranges with the subcompact Lanos at the bottom and the Leganza on top. Today’s Nubira belongs to the middle rung, an accessible compact that offered similar equipment to Japanese competitors, at discount prices. The model came in 4-door sedan, 5-door hatchback, and a nifty-looking 5-door wagon. The version featured today.
The Nubira’s soft compound shapes, which are so very late ’90s, neatly avoid being wholly generic. They are the work of Turin’s IDEA Institute. For the most part, these Daewoos were considered reasonably assembled and worth the money. Albeit, less refined than Japanese offerings.
Those qualities aside, Daewoo crashed and burned in its quest for world domination. Result of overstretched resources that crumbled under too ambitious goals.
There must be some truth to the cars having decent assembly, as this one has survived with few blemishes. However, I’m aware that today’s find is the exception, not the rule. Though most Daewoos seemed to have vanished not necessarily by fault on their own. Instead, due to the fate that befalls low-cost products –buyers that cared little about them, wore them out and tossed them when done.
Still, there’s the occasional dedicated low-cost car owner, to which this Nubira certainly owes its existence. A nice unicorn that serves to tell a now-fading automotive footnote.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: Daewoo Nubira – A Family COAL
Automotive History: The Tangled Story Of Daewoo In The United States
These always struck me as the most generically styled cars of their era. If AI was used to depict a car from around the year 2000, you would probably get one just like this.
I am amazed that 1) any of these are still on the road and that 2) this one is as nice as it is.
I thought the slight coke-bottle styling, gave them a bit of character/uniqueness. Over say, the Escort wagon. I thought the Ford wagon was the ultimate in late ’90’s generic design, at the time. Dark colours, would aid the looks of these. More sporty/stylish, and larger wheel choices, would have helped as well.
Different wheel arch shapes, front to back, looks weird. More rounded front arches, appear more modern. Less conservative.
The unfortunate sheetmetal creases above the wheel arches, appear almost like side-swipe damage. Probably added, to reduce the appearance of the tall bodysides. A more rounded/raked D-Pillar, would have improved the design as well.
Felt, it was a bad model name choice.
It’s always fun to see some of my photos used here at CC. This particular car really took me by surprise. I initially just assumed that my eyes were deceiving me. “Naw, that can’t be a Daewoo. Gotta be a Corolla or something like that.” But I took a second look, and Daewoo it was.
I once saw the Daewoo logo described as a “chrome jockstrap” — one of those things where once you see it, you can’t unsee it anymore. 😆
Also such a shame what happened to Suzuki’s fortunes in the US after Daewoo’s US dealer network (soon followed by Daewoo itself) collapsed, and their next-gen models got rebadged to sell here as Suzukis. The models actually built by Suzuki itself in Japan were quite good by most accounts, but the Korean-built Suzuki-badged Daewoos were… well, Daewoos. The Suzuki-native Kizashi sedan in particular deserved a better shot.
Hi. Thin on the ground here in NZ nowadays too. Brother had a Holden SUV which was
made by Daewoo, so guess that became their niche.
Wow – what an incredible unicorn! There were only about 50,000 Nubiras sold in the US over 5 model years, and just a small proportion were wagons. I’m pretty sure that I haven’t seen one of these cars since — oh, maybe since they were new.
Mike, I’m glad you stopped to photograph this one.
Thanks! I didn’t have a chance to talk to the owner, whoever that might be. Too bad about that! There’s probably an interesting story behind that rare yet mundane car.
I worked at a collision center that was next door to an import dealer that had five other brands when the Daewoo hit our shores (Mazda, Subaru, Isuzu, Kia, and Suzuki). We repaired many of them, and as has been said they weren’t bad cars. They did not take very good care of their dealers, allowing only 15% profit on parts while other imports were 20 or 25 and domestics were at least 30. When they bailed out of the US market the financial institutions ceased loaning money on them so the values tanked. The snowball effect took over from there. Many repairable cars were totaled by insurance companies because of the low value and sent to the junk yard. The featured one is in very nice condition and was a good catch. I liked the Nubira the best of the three lines and the wagon was my favorite body style. I see in the background of the last photo is a nice looking dark blue ’90 – ’92 Geo Prizm as well.
The blue car is mine. The photobomb was intentional. I like to do stuff like that.
Hi Mike. Nice catch, and good to see your Prizm is still at it.
Thanks, Paul. Ol’ Betsy is still purring like a kitten.
Thanks, i will try to keep that in mind. Are all three in the photo your fleet?
Naw, just the blue Geo. I took that photo at the local hardware store.
If I am not mistaken, was Daewoo the manufacturer that tried to circumvent the dealer model by having college students hawk these cars on campuses? The population that tend to be cash poor to purchase new cars and have difficulties in securing financing? To compound things further, a stereotype perhaps, buyers of low budget cars tends not to maintain them properly and due to deferred maintenence, they tend to require high cost repairs or uncommonly stocked parts…Not to mention that the actual dealerships were mostly on the coasts or hundres of miles away if living in rural areas. If the car I am thinking of that had this marketing model, is not the Daewoo, I apologize…it’s been a while since I was a college student! LOL…
Left out five words…it should read as:
The college student-body is probably a population that tend to be cash poor to purchase new cars and have difficulties in securing financing?
I used to see a white Lanos running around the Santa Clara/ Cupertino area. The owner had swapped all the badges for Lexus items. It sure got a lot of double takes. I went to check out the Daewoo line at the dealer. I thought that the cars were okay, comparable to other lower price manufacturers. My suggestion to the salesperson was that they could have chosen better names for the American market.
I didn’t get why after the gorgeous Espero Daewoo accepted such ugly soulless job from IDEA… at a quick glance it looked just another Hyundai Elantra (which used to be pretty much popular than the Nubira). Maybe it was on purpose to make it cheap to the core as the Espero being far cheaper than the Vectra / Cavalier ended up spoiling its cousins sales.