The Ford Capri Laser Page

With all the talk of Korea kicking about these days it got me thinking, who remembers these hideous machines. I recall them coming out in the 90s as little bubbles then buying all Vauxhalls old tooling and stamping out the Nexia and Espero (which incidentally was a Bertoni designed car, he ripped off an early Ford design for the first Mondeo code named CDW27 - have a look). They all of sudden seemed to be everywhere, three year warranty, Break down cover and three year Free servicing etc people thinking they would last. Well they didn't, not only did they go bankrupt in 1999 there isn't one Nexia or Espero for sale on eBay. Just Hyundia who try to give everything away the same as Daewoo did, Kia and Ssangyong to go then.

Remember seeing a few Astra clone Nexia's on the road, as you said, they came from nowhere & now seem to have gone back there . Here's one for sale, but it's in Bangalore.. Deluxe model though, so definitely worth saving

I remember that I was in Kuala Lumpur in Malasia the first time I saw a Daewoo. It was a year or so before they started selling them here and the Asian and Australian market versions at the time were direct Astra MK2/Opel Kadet copies without the restyling that European versions had.

I've worked on a few over the years and can vouch for the fact that they were crap and not built to anywhere near the quality of an Ellesmere Port - built Astra. They all seemed to disappear quite quickly.

When Daewoo (car division) went bust, GM took over the lot and renamed the then current Daewoo products as Chevrolets and I think many of the small Chevrolets (for the asian market anyway) are still built in the Daewoo plant in Korea.

The Hyundais and Kias are certainly getting better than they were a few years ago, it seem every time I turn a corner there's a Kia Sportage to be seen. That 7 year warranty certainly sells them.

Dacia seem to have become large in that part of the market now. I remember when the first cars bearing their name started appearing here, a Romanian built copy of the Renault 12 - frankly a bit of an odd choice as the 12 was never really that popular outside France. They seemed to just fade out of the market after a while and it was funny to see them pop up again much more recently with a batch of quite interesting budget conscious vehicles. I was surprised last year when a friend bought a new Sandero with it's 900cc petrol turbo engine, saying it is nicer to drive than the diesel Focus he had before.

No wonder you never see Daewoo cars around these days. According to howmanyleft.co.uk, there are just 117 Espero (36 licensed and 275 Nexia (107 licensed) left. At their peak in 1999 there were 16,097 Espero and 31,317 Nexia registered.

Andrew.

Andrew 2.8i wrote:No wonder you never see Daewoo cars around these days. According to howmanyleft.co.uk, there are just 117 Espero (36 licensed and 275 Nexia (107 licensed) left. At their peak in 1999 there were 16,097 Espero and 31,317 Nexia registered.

Andrew.

I would imagine these would have been great scrapped scheme trade insurance, the are about that period of sh*teness when things would have disappeared.

I used to take great pleasure in telling my Daewoo owning, liberal vegetarian associates that the same company manufactures some great firearms.

Supporting the arms industry whilst claiming to be leading an ethical lifestyle? That'll be the Daewoo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26T_Motiv

I have a sick want for a nexia or espero and Saab turbo convert it for a laugh it would make a bloody good sleeper

fordperv wrote:I have a sick want for a nexia or espero and Saab turbo convert it for a laugh it would make a bloody good sleeper

I like SAAB turbos, always did, something about SAABs